It is always a touching thing, when we lose someone, to see how we gather together, close ranks and share our grief; so, this morning, we are here to support Judy and the family and each other.

A human being is a mystery; none of us knows another person completely but, when they leave us, we have the opportunity to celebrate the life they have lived and to remember. When we lose someone we also lose a part of ourselves; the link we form with another is unique; when it is broken, that particular relationship is irreplaceable.

Some of us are born under a lucky star, born with a singular purpose, special gifts, the means to express them and the opportunity to do so. Charles was one of those people. During our work in re-creative groups, performers develop a bond that is difficult to describe; it grows out of a common purpose, to serve the composer as best we can, and is, I believe, our first duty.

I have never known a musician who fulfilled that duty more faithfully than Charles did; the burning intention that shaped and drove him had one purpose: to put his gifts at the composer's service before anything else. He demanded the same dedication from his singers: he drove us very hard because he wanted us to match his vision, his search for perfection, and we responded to it. Our reward was the sense of total security we felt with him, coming up to us from the pit of the opera house, in a concert hall or recording studio; he was always impeccably prepared and the support he gave was like standing on solid rock.

That standard of preparation didn't mean rigidity or a lack of spontaneity; I remember during rehearsals for Julius Caesar how he would present us with bars of complicated ornamentation and cadenzas, which we duly got into our heads, to be met the next day by an excited conductor who had had more interesting thoughts overnight that he wanted us to memorise instead.