The house where I spent my early childhood shook with music. My father played the piano every day beginning with Bach or Beethoven. Consequently before I knew what I was doing I could hum lengthy chunks of the more popular sonatas. It is said that Sir Walford Davies listened intently as I hummed the Pathétique on an almost empty bus to Swansea and pressing his card on my embarrassed parents urged them to contact him should they need advice concerning my future. I was five. They didn’t. My promise was never fulfilled. I went on singing for my own amusement. By the time I was six I had a healthy repertoire of bass-baritone songs beginning with gems from Judas Maccabeus and Messiah, moving seamlessly through a little opera (‘for thee a fond heart waits’ I roared with spirit) and on into the parlour music of the turn of the century.

There was a wind-up gramophone which I was not allowed to touch but I sat contentedly listening to Caruso and Gigli, Al Bowley and the Don Cossack male-voice choir.

It was an intensly musical environment. Welsh children of that period played the piano and the violin, and their parents sang in choirs. My father taught himself to play the oboe and passed his piano lessons on to his brother who became a chapel organist. As you can imagine, in this society I was the Unmusical One. I hated piano lessons and the discipline I happily embraced where the spoken word was concerned totally escaped me when faced by a keyboard. But music had become an essential part of my life and I was fortunate to have encountered thrilling musical adventures.

Once, when I was a very young BBC announcer I toured with the BBC Welsh Orchestra (Rae Jenkins was the conductor). I wrote the scripts and met the artists at the railway station, timing the soloists’ contributions. On one occasion, I watched warily as an evidently poorly girl rose from the floor where an assistant had been pouring oil into her ear. Still grimacing with pain she began to sing her number. The atmosphere in the little hall altered as we listened in awe to a young Joan Sutherland on the brink of her great career.

I have twice been lucky enough to join an opera company as they spent the summer months playing Noël Coward and Stephen Sondheim – so wonderful not to be microphoned!

Just once I shared the stage of the Albert Hall with John Wilson when he conducted My Fair Lady. On that occasion I didn’t even have to sing as Mrs Higgins but it would be hard to describe the feeling of elation engendered on stage by this remarkable – and genial musician.

I think I am quite musical but I’m no musician. Nevertheless, music remains an important part of my adult life. Beethoven, Bach and Mozart are the composers I listen to most especially when I am performing. This is for pleasure but it is also a kind of medicine – Bach and Beethoven for grip and concentration, and Mozart for high spirits during a long run in a comedy. Never fails!

The recording I couldn't live without

Pergolesi Stabat mater

Emma Kirkby sop James Bowman counterten Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood (Decca)

‘The piece I couldn’t do without is probably Pergolesi’s Stabat mater because it is a lasting memory of my beloved Pontardawe Grammar School and the pleasures of learning Latin and of being in a choir and much much else.’

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Siân Phillips made her first public appearance when she was four. An award-winning actress, she was made a DBE for services to Drama in 2016.

This article originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of Gramophone magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today