Years ago, as a penniless young musician, I sometimes played the organ at weddings and learned a bitter lesson: the congregation hadn’t come for the music. I was used to concert audiences who listened attentively and rewarded pleasure received with appreciation given, and it came as a shock to discover that wedding congregations chattered or nipped out for a ciggie during our lovingly rehearsed anthems, failed to join in the hymns and allowed their infants to howl – though once I had become a parent I grew more forgiving of this. Words of appreciation afterwards were rare. Thus I resign myself to expect scant public attention to be paid to the feast of music that will accompany the coronation service on 6 May.

For those who have ears to hear it, however, it will be a cornucopia of delights, with no fewer than 12 new commissioned pieces, plenty of traditional favourites, and a wealth of expert performers to give their all. We are not the churchgoing nation we were in 1953, nor do our schools educate us in what I dislike having to call ‘classical music’, but we still have a unique network of more than 50 cathedrals, all with their resident choirs who maintain and build on an internationally revered tradition of choral singing. The coronation will be a rare opportunity for a massive audience to eavesdrop on what two of these crack choirs (supplemented by excellent choirs from Truro and Belfast) routinely accomplish week in, week out, and it’s not to be missed. We will also have a handpicked orchestra and an ace team of military musicians, with the wonderful Westminster Abbey and Chapel Royal choirs at the heart of it. Don’t let the music wash over you, really do listen, and you will be uplifted.​

Such is the professionalism of those taking part that I’m confident everything will go magnificently. Was it ever thus? Apparently not always. In 1727, at George II’s coronation, the Archbishop of Canterbury noted ‘the anthems in confusion: all irregular in the music’ – too bad, but Handel’s ‘Zadok the Priest’ (one of them) survived its shaky première and went on to be performed at every subsequent coronation, including, I anticipate, this one. The problem with the 1727 performance was that Handel wrote four coronation anthems for the occasion and the orchestra, confused as to the running order, struck up two different ones simultaneously. I wonder if I can believe the story that something similar happened at the end of the 1953 coronation, when some of the orchestra started to play Bax’s new ‘Coronation March’ and others went for Elgar. After a few chaotic bars, Elgar prevailed.

I’m one of the shrinking band of those who remember the 1953 coronation. We got the day off school and watched it on my parents’ nine-inch black-and-white television set… it seemed awfully long but I loved the music. I had been properly initiated at school into the mysteries of the ceremony, which included spelling tests on such difficult words as ‘sceptre’ and ‘procession’. I went through a similar process in 2000 when I needed reminding that there are two ‘n’s in ‘millennium’.

A quite different ceremony last month: the funeral at St Paul’s Covent Garden, packed to the roof, of my good friend and erstwhile choir member Kit Hesketh-Harvey. He was half of the cabaret duo Kit and the Widow (later Kit and McConnel). A favourite at upmarket society functions and royal parties, Kit brought smiles and delight to audiences who could still appreciate gentle wit and satire: ‘naughty but nice’ sums up his style. He sang under my direction as a student, in Clare College choir, having been a chorister in Canterbury Cathedral choir. Despite being outrageous, he was never late for rehearsal, always learned his music till it was note-perfect and took his studies (English literature) and his music very seriously. I knew then that he would be successful; he put it down to his chorister background. I hope there’s a place in heaven for those who bring a smile in what can seem a sombre world.

When the BBC has many enemies, mainly among rival media empires and the print media linked to them, why does it do their job for them? My friends in the BBC Singers and their many supporters were devastated last month to learn that, following what seems to have been a cost-saving managerial whim, they were to be axed. I hear that the corporation is crunching into reverse gear in the light of widespread protests, but the reputational damage is done. Does our BBC, a beacon of excellence and soft power, want the world to think it is run by ignorant philistines?