I have heard it suggested that there might be links between a nation's language and its music. At a scientific level, research suggests overlaps in the brain areas involved in processing the syntax of music and language, and also the areas involved with structural processing which is the first, relatively shallow brain-processing of something’s appearance or sound. It appears these studies are at an early stage and still a long way from answering the questions I sometimes muse on. Think of the impact of the German classical tradition on the core of musical development in the last 300 years. A logical language? An ordered language? An ordered music? A logical music? Quite different from, say, French: varied, impressionistic, more delicately textured, blurred-edged … and is that the music or the language I am referring to?

And then there are the Russians. Personally, I find myself gripped by Russian melody: Moussorgsky’s Prelude to Khovanshchina, Borodin’s On the Steppes of Central Asia, Stravinsky's Firebird, Rachmaninov’s 18th Variation – all right not his, but an inversion so subtly identified and developed – and countless, countless Tchaikovskian themes. They stay and stay with me. I wonder if there is a connection with their language? It cannot be melody associated with languid vowels, the normal explanation given for Italian melodic success, as Russian abounds with concatenations of consonants, including impossible single consonant prepositions, like “v” and “k”. Then look at the “nshch” in the middle of the title of the Moussorgsky piece. Melodic? No, hardly. I wonder if there is a deeper overlap in the neuroscience of it all and it might one day be found. Alternatively, it is in my brain and I just like the Russians.

They say that bees are amazing examples of a collective working to the same end. There can be up to 80,000 in a hive all applied to the same task, guided by waggle dances to communicate information so that workers know where to forage and so they can achieve the collective goal of making honey. Is it simpler for an orchestra? There is after all just one conductor up there, waggle-dancing away (sorry Chris!), to help conjure up the honeyed tones of harmony.

There is so much more to it than just the conductor, skilled though that person has to be and without which a large orchestra would rapidly stall even if it ever started together! Every member of the orchestra has to cope with the collective as well as the conductor's instructions. Even with a good conductor, each person's part in a new piece can be a challenge with the unfamiliarity of the music, probably unexpected rhythms, timings, harmonies, counter-points and phrasings. Even as these hurdles are overcome, the music can still feel fragmented and un-gelled. Then comes the moment the individuals start really listening to one another and communicating with each other as a collective. The rehearsal changes out of all recognition as the orchestra communicates from within to achieve its common goal. Satisfaction increases; enjoyment soars. Precious moments, as precious as honey.

I have often found that playing a piece for the first time, even a piece that I am familiar listening to, can be an astonishingly revealing experience. Even if it is piece that I think that I know very well - it might be music on a favourite CD or something I have heard regularly on the radio - it can turn out that I haven't, in fact, really known it until after I have played it in the orchestra. I have had that experience with Grieg, Dvorak, Wagner... After playing a piece in an orchestra, it is as though I have had the privilege of climbling into the composer's mind just a little way to experience their genius at short range. What I find astonishing is the unpredictability of which aspect of the music it is that hits me most. With Dvorak it was the utter emotional openness of his melodic invention in the 8th Symphony. With Grieg, it was the astonishing, spiralling harmonic progression of "Morning" from Peer Gynt Suite. While with Wagner - and I admit to having had a little bit of a problem with Wagner in the past - it was his kaleidoscopic counterpoint in Die Meistersinger. I suddenly found I was listening in a dozen different directions and marvelling at the man's command of his invention, as if he had been designing different parts of a cathedral with different pens all at the same time. Come and climb inside too.

Do you remember the first time that you played in a big piece of repertoire in a full-sized orchestra? For me it was Elgar's Overture "Cockaigne" in a city youth orchestra. Now the opening bars are not easy timing and I really wasn't sure that I was getting it right. The conductor was a lovely fellow, but didn't seem to have the clearest of beats. Nonetheless it was gelling slowly and soon we reached one of overture's climaxes and the conductor beamed benignly at us as we put everything into it - woodwind and string tremolando accompanying a full brass section, backed up by a very keen timpanist. Wow! Didn't we feel proud to be producing such a fantastic sound!