There’s a challenge going round at the moment, inviting you to name your top fifteen albums in no more than fifteen minutes’ worth of contemplation.

Intrigued, I undertook the test, and present here the result: my only rule was that they had to be listed in the order in which they occurred to me, and I had to stop at fifteen. (What the list says about their impact or my tastes in music is another matter!) They should be albums that have stayed with you, or made the greatest impact.

1. Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
2. Bitches Brew – Miles Davis
3. Music for 18 Musicians – Steve Reich
4. Hejira – Joni Mitchell
5. Heavy Weather – Weather Report
6. Préludes – Debussy – performed by Dino Ciani
7. Mélodies – Debussy –– Barbara Hendrix / Michel Beroff
8. Violin Concerti – Bach – Anne-Sophie Mutter / Salvatore Accardo / English Chamber Orchestra
9. Passio, Arvo Pärt – Hilliard Ensemble
10. The Köln Concert – Keith Jarrett
11. String Quartets, Debussy / Ravel – the Kodaly Quartet
12. Étoile Polaire (North Star) – Philip Glass
13. Histoires naturelles, Ravel – Gerard Souzay / Dalton Baldwin
14. Manhattan – Art Farmer
15. Vermont Counterpoint, Steve Reich – Ransom Wilson (flute)

I have to admit, I was surprised that Music for 18 Musicians came third! I can still recall exactly where I was the first time I heard Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint, which opened the door in the low wall to Reich and to Minimalism for me. The Bach concerti used to be played repeatedly in the car on the school run when I was going to school. The Debussy / Ravel quartet disc was the first CD I ever purchased, and was a revelation: the colour, the language, the nuance of French Impressionism.

I’ve never heard as charismatic a performance of Ravel’s Histoire naturelles as that given by Souzay / Baldwin, and although my tastes have changed since, I still have a soft spot for the Barbara Hendrix recording of the Debussy songs.

And for solid swing, the flugelhorn of Art Famer on Manhattan is unforgettable.

Nearly all of these were influential in defining my musical interests which still hold sway, and none of them, interestingly, came from my music studies for GCSE / A-level: they were the result of listening outside the curriculum-imposed works from the Classical tradition. Apart from the Pärt, these had all wormed their ways into my life by the time I left school. There have been fantastic albums since then – the Tallis Scholars singing Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah, Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle¸KidA by Radiohead – but these occurred later, both in life and in the order of recall when writing the list, so they didn’t make it.

Your turn….