My wife enquired why I have such an appetite for listening to what she calls ‘maddening’ music.
It all started at Shrewsbury School in the 1970s. Our time outside lessons was our own, and one afternoon I was so utterly bored that I wandered up to my dorm and turned on the wireless. It was Radio 3 and they were playing , a piece by the American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954). I was instantly hooked – and it started a lifelong interest in the composer whom Leonard Bernstein described as ‘a
