The new Lebrecht Interview series starts tonight on BBC Radio 3 with an unbuttoned conversation with William Christie, early-music pioneer and the American who revolutionised the culture of musical performance in France.

‘Am I being indiscreet?’ he says, at one point.

Yes, he is. We talk for 45 minutes, no holds barred and all names named, about how great musicians abuse their students, how public funding gets distorted by political vanity and how an individual with tunnel vision can overturn a state bureaucracy.

The broadcast will be streamed here for seven days – up to the next Lebrecht Interview.