Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (Taverner Consort, Choir and Players, conducted by Andrew Parrott)

Daytime radio is mostly unlistenable. BBC 6 Music was briefly OK when Gideon Coe was on in the morning and Andrew Collins at 4pm. Lucy listens to Radio 4, but that endless chatter that blurs trivia and personalities with issues and news gets on my nerves — not to mention the theme tune to The Archers, which still sends me into raging sulk, remembering how my mum would tell me to be quiet and not bother her as that tune followed Listen with Mother. So mostly I listen to nighttime radio in the day, courtesy of the iPlayer and the Evoke Flow internet radio we have in the kitchen. Mark Lamarr's God's Jukebox shows go down well with the whole family.

But when that's not possible — and it wasn't at all until quite recently — Radio 3 is the only station I can tolerate (provided they haven't got an opera on). Funny things can happen when you drop in on Radio 3. Well, little moments of transcendence — I guess they're not 'funny'. All my life I've been a barbarian at the gates of classical music, circling round it without ever being sure how to get in. Then you flick the switch on the radio, get thrown into the middle of a piece, and it transports you. Suddenly, without knowing how, you're in; and it's beautiful, moving and complete.

Something like that happened one time fifteen years or so ago when I heard Monteverdi's Vespers on the radio. I stayed listening, waiting for the DJ to back announce who it was — another thing about Radio 3 is that they're reliable about doing that — so I could write it down. Then off to HMV where a double CD like this, complete with 68-page booklet (mostly in foreign languages, but the English bit remains unread), cost a princely £22.99. Now it's a third of that price, and available for free listening at every streaming service going.

You never recapture the transcendent moment. At least, I don't: I'm back outside the gates, circling round, and round. It's not that I don't enjoy listening to these CDs. A bit of plainchant, liturgical voices, they never go amiss. But I hoped to be able to repeat that radio moment whenever I wanted; and I can't.

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