8 February 1973, 8 Warwick Avenue, London W2

Most of this interview was broadcast on BBC Radio Ʒ on 10 July 1973 to introduce a Seventieth Birthday Concert from the Cheltenham Festival; some of it appears in Twenty British Composers: the Feeney Trust Commissions (J. & W. Chester, 1975). This is a fuller version of our discussion.

pd What were your earliest musical impressions as a child?

lb Well, it's rather a curious story. My father was passionately fond of music and had been invalided out of the Navy before I was born. He hadn't been able to learn music as a boy, or hear very much, so he acquired a pianola with all kinds of rolls of classical music – Beethoven Sonatas and arrangements of concertos – which I heard at a very early age on this machine. That was my introduction to music.

pd Were you a chorister, or anything like that?

lb I sang in the choir at school, but I was never a chorister.

pd What about your own playing? When did you start learning the piano?

lb I started improvising, like a lot of musical children, picking things up by ear and learning to play off my own bat. Then from the age of about eight, I suppose, I was given piano lessons and went on with them throughout my schooldays.

pd Did you practise willingly?

lb Yes, fairly willingly because I was keen to be able to play. But I was slow to learn sight-reading until the moment came when I realised that I couldn't get any further unless I could read.