by Janet Evans
How did I come to Early Music? Gradually. When I was a child, on the rare occasions when a piece of what I now know as Early Music was played on the wireless my parents switched it off, leaving me thinking “I should have liked to listen to that”. When I was in my teens my father built a record player from a kit and a neighbour lent me a recording of one of Bach’s suites. I enjoyed it and when I took it back to her she said I could keep it, so I became familiar with it.
In the late 1960s a friend suggested we should go to a concert at the University of Manchester; it was given by a viol consort. Then I taught myself to play the treble recorder and went to Forsyth’s music shop in Manchester to buy some music for it. The piece I bought was a solo sonata by Telemann. A few years later I discovered that other people played recorders and I started going to the Manchester branch of the SRP. Much of the music we played was by people like Byrd, Holborne and Gabrieli. About the same time I began to go to recorder courses, where a lot of Early Music was played.
Having taken grade VI recorder I joined a recorder class at the College of Education; in the course of the year the teacher (Colin Touchin) helped me with my grade VIII exam and the following year I joined a Baroque Chamber Music evening class. Through my connection with the College I heard about the meeting to discuss the formation of NWEMF, so I went to that and became a founder member. Going to workshops extended my knowledge of Early Music repertoire.
So, how did I come to Early Music? Gradually.
Janet Evans
Published in the February 2026 Newsletter
