This programme is centred around the performance style found in mechanical musical instruments (generally barrel-organs and organ-clocks) produced in eighteenth-century England. It features a combination of pieces which appear in treatises or other publications offering information from composers about performance style, and pieces whose style has been preserved within the pins, barrels and pipes of mechanised musical instruments made over 200 years ago. As historical performers much of our knowledge of style is based on the study of treatises on performance written in earlier eras. These are open to much interpretation, often appear to disagree with each other, and frequently the modern reader must decipher what they have omitted because it seemed too obvious to mention for readers at the time.

Two mechanical instruments have been used as the principal sources for this performance. The earliest is a clock made by Charles Clay in London in the 1730s. Clay's clocks were advertised as containing music by Corelli, Geminiani and Handel. The British Library's Aylesford Collection contains scores in the hands of Handel's scribes which connect the clock tune arrangements directly back to Handel himself and since they were exhibited only minutes away from his house and Drury Lane it seems unlikely he would not have heard them.

The second instrument is a barrel-organ made by Henry Holland and housed in the Colt Clavier Collection in Kent. The organ was probably built in the late 1780s/early 1790s and stands as a testament to Handel's enduring popularity, since more than half the music contained within the barrels is his. This organ, in remarkable condition, features music by Arne, Shield and other popular composers alongside popular folk tunes and dances of the day. These fill the first four barrels (each barrel containing 8- 12 minutes of music). The remaining 12 are devoted largely to Handel's music and feature opera arias, incidental music and two organ concertos.