• Jack Edwards reader
• Mark Caudle bass viol
• Lynda Sayce lute
• Melanie Woodcock violoncello

Thomas Gainsborough was an accomplished musician as well as an artist, and painted many of his musical friends and acquaintances, including Charles Frederick Abel, John Christian Bach, John Stanley and members of the Linley family. He played the violin and the harpsichord but had a particular affection for the viola da gamba or bass viol and the lute, then both rare instruments.

In this entertainment Gainsborough’s world is evoked though his vivid letters and the anecdotes of his friends and acquaintances. The music includes bass viol pieces by Abel, the greatest exponent of the instrument of the time, and lute music by Rudolf Straube, a pupil of J.S. Bach who settled in London. Some of it was composed for Gainsborough or comes from manuscripts once owned by him.