Private Passions

"As a composer I've always been intrigued by the way people who are not professional musicians talk about music and how they tend to reveal things about themselves when they do. And so twenty years ago, when Radio 3 was looking for a new programme in which a huge variety of people talked about their passion for music, I felt very excited about the possibilities. Over twenty years we've had a wonderful selection of guests. One unforgettable guest was the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and I was astonished by his childhood memory: of actually watching the Russian Revolution at the age of 8 on a balcony in St Petersburg. He revealed that for him Bach was like 'daily bread', and chose the 5th Brandenburg Concerto."Music connects us with what really matters, beyond the daily busyness of our lives; through music we plunge beneath the surface, and often find ourselves at earliest childhood memories. So, for instance, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy remembers the unexpected arrival at home of a piano, and how she learn