Recordings of mechanical musical instruments collected and introduced by Fritz Spiegl.
Henry VIII's automatic spinet, 'an instrument that goeth with a whele, without playinge yppon,' does not survive, but similar instruments from the time of Shakespeare will be heard in this programme; also a barrel organ that plays operatic pieces by Handel, Arne, and others, a Mozartian mechanical organ and a Napoleonic trumpet machine. Such instruments provide fascinating evidence of how the music of the past actually sounded.
Programme produced by Roger Fiske : second broadcast