You’ve just recorded a disc of Weimar-era music with the Nexas Quartet, and it’s set to become a cabaret show as well. How did all that come about?

Toby Chadd at ABC Classics and I met up to talk about some possibilities, and then I came up with the Weimar idea – something I thought was a bit different. With the number of composers and the amount of music from that period that is still neglected – and which is fabulous stuff, by the way – I thought it could actually be commercially viable if it’s marketed properly. It’s the sort of music that can go down as easy listening, but it can also be filed under classical because we’ve chosen some of that stuff as well. The cabaret idea followed on. Once I started looking at the whole period, I thought I’d write a little 70-minute show for myself and the saxophone quartet where each of us is a composer. One is Eisler, one is Kurt Weill, one is Bert Brecht, etc. and we talk about what was going on at the time and play music that ties in with all of that.

Peter...