Of course, there are plenty of people who know astonishing amounts about it all. There are folk who enjoy analysing the music from a technical point of view and will happily buttonhole you in the bar at the interval to talk about motifs and parallel fifths and suspended chords and all manner of baffling-sounding musical theory. There are people who’ve been going to concerts since they saw Beethoven live at the age of four and will talk ever so earnestly about how they preferred the second trumpet today to the one they saw in Prague in 1902. Those are of course totally legitimate ways to engage with and enjoy the music, but – and this is key – they’re just personal approaches.

Which isn’t to say, by the way, that there’s nothing to be gained by knowing some stuff about what you’re listening to, only that it’s more like a fun bonus than a necessity. Do you need to know that the particular Royal Fireworks which Handel wrote his suite for were a celebration of the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession? Of course not. Will it come in useful? Maybe it’ll add an extra bit of interest if you’re a history nut, or planning to go on Only Connect. Do you need to know that the King banned Handel from putting violins in it and Handel was so annoyed that he put them right back as soon as the fireworks were over? Does it sound like you need to? I can’t imagine why you would – but it lends a bit of did-you-know trivia colour to the thing and you get something of Handel’s personality from it, if – and only if – that’s your bag. Is it important to be aware of that the fireworks themselves were an utter disaster – a pavilion was set on fire, as was a lady’s dress, and a soldier was blinded by an explosion? Definitely not, but it’s a fun fact. Fun, that is, unless you’re the lady, the soldier or the pavilion.

Listening to classical music for me is no different to when I listen to Taylor Swift (which I do a lot). I know people who could pick any of Tay-Tay’s songs and tell you the key it’s in, the specific chord sequence she’s using and how she’s subverting it. There are millions of people who could tell you which of her dastardly exes the lyrics are about and the exact circumstances of the break-up. I don’t know any of those things. But I do know all the words and will sing them loudly in the car. I don’t feel my enjoyment is being limited by my lack of knowledge, even if I am limiting the enjoyment of the other people in said car.

The composers who wrote classical music didn’t do it for experts. They didn’t do it in the hope that people would stroke their chins and nod with intellectual understanding. The music you’re going to hear tonight was designed to move audiences – physically and emotionally. What do you know about it? Doesn’t matter. What do you feel? Well, that’s everything. Does it make you want to tap your feet? Does it make your heart melt right into your boots? Those questions are way more important than knowing which of Bach’s cantatas the opening to his first Brandenburg Concerto is based on, or whatever.

And here’s the kicker: It’s also fine if some (or even all, come to that) of the music doesn’t move you. Not every piece is for everyone. I mean, how could it be? That’d be awful – we’d all be the same. You know that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera and she cries at the emotion of it all and he says something along the lines of “You either get it or you don’t”? I tell you: if I could, I’d find and ceremoniously burn every copy of that accursed scene because what he says there is tripe of the rubberiest kind and dangerous hooey. Only a month or so ago I was talking to yet another person who’d been put off opera for years because she believed that line and its implication that there’s some innate quality you have to possess in order to enjoy a particular kind of music – as though if you’ve not dissolved into a gloopy puddle of inconsolable sorrow on hearing it you’ve revealed yourself as unworthy of the glorious things laid before you. As though, in fact, it’s some kind of test.

Well, it’s not. This, here, tonight – this is not a test. You know what it is? It’s a bunch of lovely tunes. And you either like them or you don’t. It’s really not much more complicated than that.

Luckily for you, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, who are (and please don’t tell them I said this) unbelievably good at their jobs, have laid on some absolute killers this evening. Some of these pieces are so good and sticky and well-known that by this point they’re practically part of human DNA. And all played and sung by the very best in the business. Just sit back, let the music surround you, and see where it takes you.

Bon voyage.