Roderick Swanston asks six leading performers of early music to reveal the personal element in their music-making.

Like Alfred Deller before her, Emma Kirkby has come to be the most famous voice of early music. She says that "human-sized voices" like hers are more natural than those of today's opera stars - and feels lucky that somebody was in search of her sound when she was still a teacher and part-time choral singer. The programme includes excerpts from sacred music by Byrd, Taverner, Couperin and Monteverdi; secular songs by Dufay, Sermisy, Ward, Schutz, Dowland, Lawes and Blow; and dramatic music by Purcell and Handel.
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