Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out

of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

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The Royal College of Music, where we're sitting now, has produced some pretty impressive alumni.

One of the most prominent has to be the man whose second symphony will hear in the latter half of tonight's prom.

Michael Tippett.

Tippett had a stark and rather startingly clear sense of his own standing

in 20th century music.

He once wrote,

I'm not as gifted as Ben,

Ben Britain,

but more experienced and capable than Henser,

who's also on tonight's program, of course.

The reputation of many of Tippett's works remains strong, a child of our time,

midsummer marriage, double fantasia.

But what was it that made this most contradictory of modern musical figures,

the gay conscientious objector who spent time in wormwood scrubs

and ended up as a somewhat respectable musical

Knight of the Realm. Well, to unpick the man behind the mask,

...