I was an only child. Neither of my parents were musical but my grandfather was an amateur church organist – by day, a gas engineer-draughtsman with the Gas Board. He lived near us in the Midlands and had a box of 78rpm records that included the Andrews Sisters and goodness knows what. One disc had Moiseiwitsch with the Rachmaninov C-sharp minor Prelude on one side and the G minor Prelude on the other. I was very ambitious as a six-year-old – my teacher had just taught me how to read music – and I wanted to play the C-sharp minor Prelude. I could manage the first page pretty well. The other two pages gave me problems. I moved to another teacher and when I was seven or eight I could play both Preludes.

In the days when everything was broadcast on the radio, I could always tell when it was Moiseiwitsch playing. My next choice is him in Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with Hugo Rignold. It’s a wonderful performance, still the best, and the one I can conjure up in my mind. Just listen to the patrician quality of the sound! I’ve heard lots of other people play it, especially on records, but this has always remained very special to me. Other Moiseiwitsch gems include the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he did on the fly yet people thought was better than Rachmaninov’s version, the Wagner/Liszt Tannhäuser Overture and Chopin’s B minor Scherzo. Such elegant playing. It’s not ‘sweaty’! He held back the emotions to make everything more touching – as did Rachmaninov at times. They didn’t do full-out crazy.

Another disc that had tremendous influence on me was Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin, Debussy and Ravel. I remember it from the year we moved to Coventry when I was 14. I went to Woolworths with my mother to do some shopping and there was a bin there with LPs in it – all sorts of nonsense and regular stuff – and among them was Ashkenazy. This was just after he’d won the Tchaikovsky Competition with John Ogdon in 1962. Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit (which was a piece I knew I had to learn), Chopin’s Scherzo Op 54 and Nocturne Op 62/1, and Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse. I bought it for two pounds, took it home and listened to it over and over again. I didn’t do the Debussy or the Nocturne for a long time, but I did do Gaspard and the Scherzo. This repertoire was a challenge for me but I went after it lustfully aged 14-17, and they became two of my recital pieces for the Royal Academy. Ashkenazy’s versions are fabulous. That was when he played the best – in the sixties. Truly remarkable.

At Coventry Cathedral I participated in many wonderful performances of great choral works. I attended the fifth anniversary performance of Britten’s War Requiem there in 1967. Then there was Bach’s St Matthew Passion with David Willcocks and King’s College Choir. I worked with Willcocks as a music scholar at Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1970 to 1972. I’ve always loved the King’s sound under Willcocks – the integrity of it. He had a great ear and extraordinary abilities as a choral conductor. It is one of the greatest pieces ever. I had begun playing the organ in Coventry when I was 14 and used those skills in Cambridge – and afterwards when I went to Yale. I got a job in Stamford, Connecticut, which helped with financing. Yale today is completely free after an endowment from businessman Stephen Adams of $100 million. Like the Curtis Institute it’s a free ride – as it should be.

I conducted the first performances of On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring in Israel and Poland. There is something about the way that Beecham does it. It’s so much better than anyone else. He combines lightness of touch with real authority of the ‘I don’t care a damn’ kind. Of course he does care – he cares about his friend, he cares about the harmonies, the emotional content of the piece. He may conduct with a poker face but it’s amazingly effective. I watched his Enigma Variations again recently – there’s a little bit of it on film. It doesn’t look like he’s doing much, but… timing is paramount. Listen to the way he sets the scene in the Delius. Magical!

Rachmaninov Preludes in C-sharp minor and G minor

Benno Moiseiwitsch pf

Naxos 

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2

Benno Moiseiwitsch pf Philharmonia Orchestra / Hugo Rignold

HMV 

Ashkenazy plays Chopin, Ravel & Debussy

Vladimir Ashkenazy pf

Decca 

J S Bach St Matthew Passion

Bach Choir / Sir David Willcocks

Decca 

Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Thomas Beecham

Warner Classics