It seems I’m not the only one with Russia fever…

Some people start their day with coffee. Others with the languid tones of John Humphrys on the Today programme. I start my day with Tchaikovsky.

It’s certainly one way to wake yourself up in the morning, with a crash of the cymbals, some syncopated brass and bit of cannonfire for good measure – all of which can be found in his 1812 Overture.

Of course, it’s not what the Russian composer himself would have wanted: he thought the 1812 “very loud and noisy” and that it had “no artistic merits”.

Well, that’s one view. Here’s another: Classic FM listeners have named 1812 their favourite classical piece, putting it at the top of their Hall of Fame, and their decision, obviously, is final.

It is not fashionable to be into the Russians at the moment, but I have been for many years, since, aged 13, I played the flute in Alexander Borodin’s Second Symphony at school.

From then on, I was hooked on a whole nation’s orchestral music – on Smetana, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninoff. These Russians had funny names, their country had an exciting past, and a national brand of politics that, as a teenager growing up under Tony Blair, was absolutely captivating.

Today, while my music tastes have broadened – I now allow Mahler and Dvořák into my tent of favourite composers, too – I’m drawn back to Russia, time after time.

Were I to be asked on to Desert Island Discs tomorrow, I’d have a pretty good run of symphonies to choose from.

Shostakovich’s 12th Symphony, aka The Year 1917, written to commemorate Lenin and the Russian Revolution, would be top of the list. I listen to it most mornings on my way to work, and I’ve got the timing sussed so that I start it when I get on the bus, and by the time I’m coming up the escalators to the office it’s the grand finale, and, ta-dah, I’m the star of my own film, albeit an overly triumphant one.

And despite the country’s dastardly deeds, it seems our love of a bit of Tchaik is only the tip of the iceberg. It may not be politic to admit it, but we have all succumbed to Russia fever, igniting, as it does, the better-thanhollywood tales learnt at school of how the Romanovs were murdered in a palace far, far away; of Rasputin and his beard; and of Lenin stowed away on a sealed train.

The BBC has just aired Mcmafia; the Leader of the Opposition goes about seemingly unafraid to wear a Lenin-esque hat; and we are all becoming familiar with the peculiarity of Russian names on our airwaves, thanks to Putin’s wicked ways.

And, if the world is going to end, it might as well be accompanied by Tchaikovsky in the background.

Incidentally, it is an Englishman, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who Tchaikovsky has knocked off the top spot in Classic FM’S chart: in 2017, The Lark Ascending was the nation’s favourite. This English pansy is the avocado of orchestral music: a bit basic, but a hit at millennial weddings.

Trailing behind Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, who comes in second this year, is Elgar’s Enigma Variations at number four. It reduces even stoic servicemen to tears, so you’d have to be made of stone not to love it.

Yet the fact that, against the odds, a Russian has taken Classic FM’S top spot is a triumph for taste – even if Tchaikovsky himself wouldn’t agree.