Moscheles taught his adopted country how to write enchanting music for decades to come.

The chapel of Bede’s monastery in Sunderland was full of the colours and sounds of the far-off Mediterranean world.

Handel called it ‘Air and Variations’, but by Charles Dickens’s day everyone knew it as ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’.

An 18th century bon viveur and virtuoso violinist, Thomas Erskine is currently being ‘rediscovered’ by the classical music industry.