Happy 300th Birthday Dr Thomas Arne!

On pew, I sit. For the first time I am in St. Mary's Church, Stoke Newington (not far from my East London home) - a building most-glorious in its gothic illumination at night.

It is 6.30pm Sunday, and I am here for the 300th Birthday celebratory concert by Linden Baroque Orchestra.

Dr Thomas Arne, now 300, was the most successful song writer of his day, and produced a sound that today feels regal, gallant, and to many ears "typically English".

Electric connection with this music came for me in Steven Devine's solo in the Harpsichord Concerto (No.5 in G). The notes fell like crystal rain, and I imagined myself pushing aside curtains of beaded glass and entering a palace of fine diamante. Fine diamante?! - djinn kitty, kitty djinn (I inwardly balked) you cannot compare English baroque with that most pedalled ingredient of democratised jewellery!

Yet, I could. In the mid-eighteenth century, Dr Thomas Arne was a most popular and commercially successful feature at London's pleasure gardens - unmissable hubs of cultural entertainment where all of London irrespective of class gathered. At the famous pleasure gardens at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Marylebone (and others), Londoners delighted in varied and eclectic programmes of song, glee, chorus, sometimes opera, alternating with overtures, symphonies, and concertos. The old mixed with the new, and there was much pastiche. Thomas Arne was central to this pastiche - he prepresented the new, the shiny. His songs often plumped out programmes and drew in the crowds (yet represented a most popular choice of "taste" - that great C18 value). Pleasure-garden gatherers might've enjoyed a solo song by Arne (like 'The Lover's Rencantation' we heard this eve) followed by a symphony. In Thomas Arne we can find a fine, glistening, democratised crystal, that sparkles and sings, and mixes with the party atmosphere and brings pleasure to many. Diamante!

This great and interesting historical music was brought alive by Linden Baroque Orchestra, who specialise in performing Baroque music on period instruments (find them on facebook). The music was accompanied by a programme written with wit and dexterity - the care in fine writing and precision of information added a grace to the proceedings and warmed this damp-cold January evening with a sense that you were somewhere most interesting and special.