One of the most depressing things on British television these days – apart from the new adaptation of Les Misérables, which is such a painful testament to human cruelty that I can’t bear to watch it – is University Challenge. And what’s depressing about University Challenge is that it features smart young people who can answer arcane questions about everything from astrophysics to Anglo-Saxon – but ask them who wrote Messiah, or what nationality was Mozart, and they’re stumped.

They’re stumped because there’s such a dearth of serious music education now in British schools. The state ones barely teach it any more, only the private, fee-paying establishments do – which means that only children from the middle classes get much opportunity to know about Messiah. Still less, any chance to play or sing it.