A close engagement with music

Sean Rafferty tells Henrietta Bredin how an abbot persuaded him to make his first recording

Six minutes to go before the daily live broadcast of BBC Radio Three’s In Tune goes on air and the atmosphere is full of a sort of supercharged alertness, of tension expertly controlled by a small team of people who all know exactly what they are doing. The producer asks about a recording of a Handel aria she wants to play later in the programme — it’s not here yet, and may only be available on DVD, but it’s being looked for, and if it fails to materialise, she’s got an alternative as back-up. Two minutes to go and presenter Sean Rafferty ambles into the studio, having been talking to the programme’s first two guests in the Green Room next door. He sits down behind the microphone and looks briefly at a couple of sheets of paper then asks: ‘What’s this about Joyce DiDonato breaking her leg over at the Royal Opera House? Do we know what bone it is?’ There’s a brief flurry of activity on the other side of the glass. ‘Tibia or fibula?’ They’ll check and let him know. Ten seconds and counting. A cue light flashes. Then, with that easy intimacy, shared by the best broadcasters, he leans forward, takes a breath, says, ‘A very good evening to you,’ and we’re off.

Rafferty’s voice is a fine and well-tuned instrument that has stood him in excellent stead over many years of broadcasting. ‘The first recording I ever made,’ he told me, ‘was when the Abbot of a Cistercian foundation in Co. Down said, “That’s a good sharp Northern Irish sound you have there. Will you do a reading about the relevance of the habit in the 20th century for us?” So I did, and the monks had to listen to it, in silence, day after day, while they were eating their lunch.’