This was on the programme at my first ever live orchestral concert, when I was taken by my aunt to the Festival Hall aged about 6 or 7 years old. It must have made quite an impact, because 40 years on it’s the Brahms symphony I still return to time after time. The combination of structure and emotion is akin to that of an alchemist: the almost never-ending stream of falling thirds, the shifting sands of the rhythm, unexpected harmonies, and a grand but taut structure, it is Brahms at his mature best. There are widely differing interpretations available, but I have grown fond of Günter Wand’s surging rendition with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester.

There is so much Handel I could put into this playlist, so much wonderful music, but were I to have favourites then this would be a contender. Cesare has been welcomed into the court of Tolomeo with great splendour, but neither trusts the other. Tolomeo plots to kill Cesare, but Cesare sees through the deception. This aria features the use of a solo obligato horn, unusual at the time of composition (in fact Handel calls for four horns in the orchestra), and fiendishly difficult on the natural horn. Although I never heard her perform this role live, the version by Janet Baker in English is peerless, (with an uncredited Frank Lloyd playing the horn solo), conducted by Charles Mackerras.

Epic doesn’t really come close when talking about this piece. This motet for 40 voices - 8 choirs of 5 voices each - is astounding in its conception, considering at the time it was unusual to write for more than 8 voice parts. The score alone is a marvel to look at! It is also a great hymn of faith, the opening lines translating as: “I have never put my hope in any other but in Thee, God of Israel”. Spine-tingling is the moment when every singer breathes together for the first time in the piece and restarts with the line “respice humilitatem nostrum” - regard our humility.

This is a very personal piece for me, and most unlike much of Beethoven’s orchestral output. We all know the titles that he attached to various movements, and the “Scene by the brook” seems to be to be a moment of repose not only in this symphony, but in all his symphonic writing. It’s the first LP I ever owned, given to me somewhat randomly at a works Christmas party of a close family friend. It’s a piece I’ve always loved, as did my mother, and it was perhaps no coincidence, who knows, that I performed it for the first time 6 days after she died. I love any version by Bernard Haitink.

Inspired by a cartoon strip in the morning newspaper, this is one of the most life-affirming pieces of music I know. The story concerns Vixen Sharp-Ears, and tells of her birth, capture by the Forrester, escape, new love, having her own family, and ultimately her death at the hands of The Poacher. Janáček’s music is so completely individual, acerbic one moment, and then utterly beautiful melodies the next. The excerpt I have chosen is from the second part of Act 1, where Sharp-Ears has been captured by the Forrester and tied up, having had to put up with his children’s baiting, and the sexual advances of the dog. Alone at night, she appears in her dreams as a young girl.

During my university days as an organ scholar, I discovered a wealth of small-scale choral music that has remained with me since. This was a particular favourite with the University Church Choir in Bristol, and we sang it every summer in Cathedrals around the country in our week-long residencies substituting for the regular cathedral choir. Howells wrote several settings of the Evening Service, and always seemed to bear in mind the spaciousness of the acoustic of the building, to whose choir the work was dedicated. The Gloucester Service is no exception, and ranges from the intimate intertwining of the two treble parts at its opening, to the ecstatic climax of the Gloria as the voices soar above the giant rumble of the organ.

The first of Maurice Duruflé’s Quatre Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens (1960), Ubi Caritas (“Where charity and love are”) is a masterpiece in miniature. Based on the original plainsong, Duruflé combines the chant melody with a polyphonic setting for unaccompanied voices. The music is rich in subtle harmonies and reminiscent of impressionism. It is so incredibly atmospheric, and one can just drift off and imagine oneself in one of the great Parisian churches.

This is pure indulgence, and I wasn’t going to include it, but I just couldn’t let it go. I’ve already mentioned Brahms and musical structure, but this is the ultimate: A four-part double canon at the 9th (for the uninitiated, here is an explanation of what that is…two separate two part canons running simultaneously, the two parts of each canon starting a 9th apart! MC), which still manages to sound effortless and sublime.

Opera does father/daughter relationships like no other genre, and this is, perhaps, the ultimate in the familial battle of wills - the headstrong daughter doing what she believes is right, and the father trying to protect her from his own vanity and errors of judgement (which is putting it mildly!). Die Walküre is the most human of all of The Ring, and the last 18 minutes or so of this opera are magnificent in so many ways, one can’t help but be moved by it. There are many good recordings, but the one I always return to is the live recording from ENO of the 1970s, conducted by Reginald Goodall, and in this extract featuring Norman Bailey as Wotan. I defy anyone with a beating heart not to wipe away a surreptitious tear by the final chord….