Papa’s love of music – provided it was seriously “old” cannot be understated. He was always deeply moved by music and had a vast love of J S Bach in particular.

As children we used to regularly go to the Royal Festival Hall for the quarterly concert series for families. It is one of my strongest memories of childhood weekends, the drive up the M3, excitement as we reached London – which for me were the plastic cows on the building in Sunbury as the M3 ended! Parking at Imperial College car park in South Ken, courtesy of Papa being the GP to Silwood Park, one of the Imperial College sites and therefore a member of IC staff. Perhaps a trip to the Natural History museum or Geology museum. Then the highlight of the day – the Royal Festival Hall and the concert.

I vividly remember a heated discussion we once had as we sat waiting for the concert to start where we debated our dream programme. For my mother it was all things romantic, particularly the French composers and her programme was Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no 2, Debussy La Mer and Prelude de L’Apres-midi d’un Faune. Gregory who must have been 10 at the time had just discovered Mahler, I was into Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers of the period but for Papa only Baroque would do: Bach, Bach and perhaps a smattering of Handel & Purcell and some Madrigals. This love of Baroque stayed with him his whole life and more recently he also began to spend lots of time listening & following leading musicians and groups specialising in Renaissance music – particularly Arpeggiata, Jakub Orlinski, Philippe Jaroussky. He loved YouTube and on a wet day I would regularly ring him and he would confess that he had spent the morning watching Youtube performances by his stars and disappearing down the renaissance music rabbit-hole for hours.

Guitar Music
Papa was always hugely attracted by the guitar and the classical guitar repertoire. Some of my earliest memories are of his LPs; John Williams & Julian Bream – both of which feature in our playlist. Papa then took up the guitar himself and worked for hours of an evening and a weekend seeking to master pieces: some successfully – Greensleeves, romance and Handel’s Lascia chi’io pianga which we have chosen for the funeral and some frustrated him to the bitter end. On the play-list is Villa-Lobos Preludes no 2 – papa always got stuck on the 5th bar and I would fall asleep as a child to those five bars being played over and over and over but never beyond!

Long live the recorder
Hugely unfashionable until recently but nevertheless fundamental to Renaissance music is the recorder and true to his love of the period Papa always had huge admiration for the recorder as an instrument. When we were children he would listen to David Munrow and more recently through Youtube discovered the new generation of renaissance musicians. He also loved to listen to recordings of classical music on original instruments.

Gilbert & Sullivan
Papa grew up with G&S. His father played the Mikado in an amateur performance in Chenai (Madras) when they lived there in the 1950s and was proud to have sung in front of visiting composer Benjamin Brittan. Grandad would burst out into G&S over family Sunday lunches with great relish and cheekiness. Rita and David enjoyed going to G&S performances in the past few years with family and friends & papa knew the lyrics of the most famous arias included in this playlist.

The Greats
Beethoven, Mozart – we have only put a smattering of their works in here. Suffice to say that our father loved both.

Pop Music
OK so our darling father did not “do” pop music. It is always a source of amazement for his grandchildren that he did not know the great names of his period. When we were children there were two pop LPs in the house: David Bowie and the Beatles and then a bit later Abb. On the other hand through our mother there was plenty of Chanson Francaise and we have included some that we know Papa particularly loved, including Nathalie by Gilbert Becaud which our parents claim was one of the reasons I am called Natalie and which bizarrely was being performed in German by a musician on the streets of Munich when we were there with Papa in November which moved Papa very much.

The Unexpected
Happy films – Papa was never a great watcher of TV, he far preferred a good book and listening to music. The one exception were happy classics: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, The Parent Trap and of course all things Danny Kaye – particularly the Court Jester – “was it the vessel in the pestle or the brew that is true?”.

Serbian Kolo Dances
Papa lived in Belgrade in the early 60s from where he brought us the tradition of dancing  on New Year’s Eve only, and after a few glasses – to this traditional Balkan music.

Smetana’s ‘Ma Vlast’ was also a favourite, dating from his time in the central Europe.