MY MUSICAL LIFE HAS BEEN blessed by gifts that, in youth, were beyond my imagination. The floppy-haired adolescent, clutching a Little Feat LP, roared when his housemaster suggested he might lend an ear to a German called Wagner. Five decades later he has chalked up 130 performances of The Master’s operas, and hopes to hear 130 more.
Schubert and Beethoven. Sinatra and Ellington. None played a part in those early years. Yet is the transformation from young groover to ageing melancholic so unusual? Most people in the autumn of their years will have pondered the question: “How did I get here from there?” We manage.
If we are honest we must
