This was today's lunchtime entertainment at The Bishopsgate Institute in The City. Countertenor Andrew Radley singing condensed operettas of "cathartic melancholy", accompanied by harpsichord, oboe and cello. I wondered how old Julian Perkins's pastel green floral-decorated harpsichord was. His website revealed that he uses two harpsichords - one was built in 1764 and the other in 1740. I haven't yet managed to discover which one he used today.
The first lunchtime concert here was during World War II in November 1943. Today was concert number 1782. It was fairly well attended, but not quite as well as the "humourous and dramatic lecture by Professor William Miles" delivered one hundred years ago. The photograph below shows the audience immediately after Professor Miles's reknowned "woman with a wooden leg" gag.
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