Sometimes, after a concert, I take a little time before going to bed – to read, to catch the day’s news, above all, to settle. On Thursday I was both tired and elated after the evening’s performance (not to mention a little bemused by the woman on the bus who told me – and our fellow passengers – that I have “the most enormous arse” when I sat next to her and caused her to have to sit up and confine herself to just one seat). I went straight to bed.

This is not to say I did not savour the evening’s music. The Chorus had a minor role to play so that, whilst waiting to sing, we got to savour the rich textures of Debussy and Ravel and to marvel at the young pianist, Yuja Wang, as she played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with both great precision and a kind of daring and abandon. Our own rendition when it came – of Villa Lobos’ Choros No 10 – matched her daring and abandon, though perhaps not her precision.

Waking on Friday morning to the news of Michael Jackson’s death, my pleasure in the evening’s concert was replaced by a sense of shock – the disbelief that often comes with the news, whether expected or not, that someone has died. Putting my shock aside I got on with my schedule of appointments and, in turn, with the weekend’s activities.

Today I have time to pause. The newspapers are full of reflections on Jackson’s universal appeal – his genius, even – as a musician as well as on so many signs that his life as a child-star-become-adult-celebrity was neither easy nor healthy. I have little to say that has not been – will not be – said in the coming days and weeks. Still, I want to honour a man whose music has had such a profound impact on generations of people and all around the world. As I write, I play Jackson’s joyful rendition of Don’t Stop ‘Til You get Enough on YouTube. The music, the dance, the sheer joie de vivre – as one critic put it, his jouissance: this is what Jackson gave us.

May he rest in peace.