One evening after doing the Monteverdi Vespers, or should I say Vespas [No you should not—Ed.] in St Johns’ Smith Square I had to get somewhere else in a hurry, so I jumped into a taxi.

The driver goes, “So wot you bin up to then?”

Me: “Um, been playing this amazing piece by Monteverdi, it’s, um, like, old stuff—like early music, you know?”

“Oh right—you mean like Frank Ifield an’ that?”

Me: “Er, yeah, that’s the kinda thing…”

* * *

“But you know”, as Alan Bennett’s sermon goes, “he put me in mind of the kind of question I feel I should be asking you here tonight”: what is early music, and is it closing time yet?

For another detached review of early music, see here (among many stories under the humour subhead of the WAM category). And here’s a comment from Larson.