I'm with you on all of those. I'm not a fan of Mahler, but one cold spring evening in 1976 at Ratagan youth hostel in Northern Scotland, when there was only a handful of people staying, we all sat up late and got a bit pissed and the then warden, the artist John Fisher, put on a record of Das Lied Von Der Erde, the one with Kathleen Ferrier and Julius Patzak conducted by Bruno Walter. It was sublime through the alcoholic haze, one of those rare nights that stay with you.

The Janacek mass is glorious, and don't forget the Sinfonietta. Put it on full whack, open the windows and annoy the neighbours! But for me those Beethoven late quartets, and his last three piano sonatas and the Diabelli Variations, are the absolute pinnacle.