While a student at Cambridge, where he read Classics and music, Christopher Hogwood came under the influence of the distinguished British musicologist and keyboard player Thurston Dart, and studied the harpsichord with Rafael Puyana; after graduating, he spent a year at the Charles University in Prague, followed by further study with Gustav Leonhardt. A founder-member of David Munrow’s Early Music Consort of London, Hogwood participated in many concerts with it until Munrow’s death in 1976, as well as playing keyboard with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields during the same period, 1965–1976. From 1970 onwards he broadcast frequently with the BBC, especially in programmes aimed at the younger listener.

In 1973 Hogwood founded the Academy of An...