The prolific film-maker Barrie Gavin, who has died aged 89, played a key role in the representation of music and the arts on British and European television from the start of his career in the 1960s, and was still working on ideas for new projects in the days before he died. Cataloguing his works over more than six decades, he was boyishly proud of the fact that he was the creator of 567 films.
He valued his collaborations with Alexander Goehr on the composers of the Second Viennese School. Gavin adored any music and art that was challenging or tough for those to whom it was unfamiliar, and he saw the TV documentary as an irresistibly fascinating way to invite the public into worlds they might otherwise never have discovered. He had no patience with anyone who lacked the energy and curiosity to find out more about what they did not understand.
