Pete Townshend of The Who has credited a 17th-century composer in a powdered wig as the structural blueprint for his stadium anthems. This episode strips away the period-drama stereotype to find the gritty, relentless theater musician behind Henry Purcell. Born in Westminster around September 1659, just as Charles II's Restoration reopened theaters and cathedrals starved of music under Puritan rule, he lost his father as a small child, was placed as a Chapel Royal chorister by his uncle, and absorbed French and Italian styles through teacher Pelham Humfrey, who had studied under Lully.

We follow what happened when his voice broke at 14 and he apprenticed with the king's organ builder John Hingston, gaining a hands-on understanding of instruments that shaped his composing. The conversation covers John Blow stepping down from Westminster Abbe ...