A decade ago, for Radio 3’s golden jubilee, Humphrey Carpenter wrote a splendid book about it called The Envy of the World. Sadly, he is no longer with us, having died of heart failure last year at the age of 58. But what he chronicled certainly is, and this week — mainly on Friday night — it celebrates its diamond jubilee. Is it still the envy of the world, which was how, in 1957, Peter Laslett (who in that more leisurely era managed to be both a Cambridge fellow and a BBC producer at the same time) described the Third Programme? It is an intriguing question, if unanswerable. Envy is a deadly sin, so few are likely to admit to it. I do know that many other stations, quite understandably, covet Radio 3’s annual budget of £31m, and its further £28m for the BBC’s orchestras and singers. And I am sure Radio 3, which rarely raises its voice, but provides the highest of standards, is the best possible reason for the licence fee, and that it deserves its birthday bash.

What is being marked, of course, is the 60th anniversary not of Radio 3, but of the birth of the Third, a formidably highbrow mix of music and high culture. That lasted, undiluted, until 1957, when the BBC decided it was too esoteric and cut its hours, despite fierce opposition from figures such as Laurence Olivier, Michael Tippett and TS Eliot. Several other services were added to the same frequency, until the entire aural quilt was renamed Radio 3 in 1967. Even for three years after that, proud Third kept its own team, until its music was absorbed into Radio 3 and most of the speech went to Radio 4.

For much of its life, then, the Third/Radio 3 has been confused about its identity — and in a way, it still is. Once, a Radio 3 controller had to increase listener quantity, but not at the expense of quality; today, more controversially, Roger Wright has to square a different sort of circle and find room for Schubert and salsa, vespers and electronica. He has managed it with skill, preserving the core of western classical music and emphasising that with A Bach Christmas, The Beethoven Experience and Webern Day. Next February come the complete works of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, with the full interpretation and context listeners expect.

Some say Radio 3 bears no comparison with the Third. They are right, there is no comparison. The Third was conceived at the same time as nationalisation and the NHS, born amid rationing and in a country whose post-war airwaves were starved of great music, but which enjoyed greater national unity.

Not only has all that changed, no- body who tunes in to Christopher Frayling’s History Through the Ears on Radio 3 at 9.30 tonight could possibly doubt the impact of digital technology and declining attention spans on how any of us listens to anything. Radio 3 has had to adapt to a changed world, as well as one of podcasts, downloads and audio streams.

It may no longer have comedy or theology, as it once did, and in today’s world would benefit from both. But at its best it has the power of all great music, poetry and art. It elevates, which is something beyond Reith’s famous trio of educate, inform and entertain. You feel better as a human being for listening to it, and there are not many stations you can say that about.