How do you mostly listen to music?

My Christmas present from my husband was a Crosley portable turntable, so I’ve had a great time recently dusting off my LPs that I haven’t played for many years. The sound is so clean and I enjoyed having to get up and turn the LP over in between movements when listening to Elgar’s Second Symphony (that’s nostalgia for you!) When I am away I listen to music mostly on my phone or laptop with a good pair of noise-reducing headphones.

What was the first ever record or cd you bought?

This is quite embarrassing as I can’t remember exactly. I’d like to think it was the ground-breaking recording of Messiah with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music. Listening to it was a light-bulb moment - I fell in love with the sound of the original instruments and I remember hearing Emma Kirkby sing But who may abide and the hairs of my neck standing on end as she got to the Refiner’s Fire section… That’s what I would like to think, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was actually a 45 single, Bucks Fizz’s Making your mind up. I’ve always had broad tastes!

If you found yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would you choose?

Cello. I love everything about the instrument. As a harpsichordist I spend my musical life sharing a bass line and trying to match my sound with the continuo cello. So we have an instrument that can mould and structure from the bass and then melt your heart with the most beautiful and tender melodies. Geminiani’s Sonata in D minor is a particular favourite, yum!

Is applauding between movements acceptable?

Absolutely! An audience should feel free to respond to the atmosphere in the room and what they feel in their hearts. If they are exhilarated they must be free to show it. I suppose that might mean that we could get to the end of a piece and not receive applause (which has happened to me!). This is also fine. There are many ways to appreciate music. Personally I always welcome applause after the first movement of JS Bach’s Brandenburg 5th Concerto. After that huge virtuosic cadenza it feels flat if there is nothing. You can often sense the awkward silence when we carry on without applause - the audience needs to breathe too. It’s also nice for the soloist’s heart beat to calm down before playing that fragile chord that starts the second movement.

What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?

Mahler’s 5th Symphony at the Proms with The Vienna Phil and Bernstein conducting, in 1987. I was a student and several of us queued from early in the morning. It was just the most beautiful music-making I had ever encountered. Bernstein’s pacing and control and sheer beauty of phrasing was unforgettable. We demanded encore after encore and eventually Bernstein put his hands by his head to indicate that the orchestra needed to sleep! They probably had a horrendously early start the next day. I thought that was a very endearing gesture.

We’re giving you a time machine: what period, or moment in musical history, would you travel to and why?

I would love to go back to the premiere of Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket, London on 20 February 1724. It would be fascinating to hear the singers and orchestra, and as a bit of a historical performance anorak-wearer, I’d love to study the details of ornamentation, the techniques of singing and playing as well as sampling the beauty and excitement that all the contemporary reports suggest. Perhaps the most intriguing thing though, would be to see the great Mr Handel leading his forces from the principal harpsichord and to experience (what I imagine to be) his incredible dynamism and zest for life through music.

Do you enjoy musicals? Do you have a favourite?

Yes I do. My father took me as a child to see The King and I with Yul Brynner and Virginia Mackenna at the London Palladium and I’ve loved them ever since. Most recently I went to see The Color Purple on Broadway. A great friend, the fabulous Cathy Jayes, has done the musical supervision and I absolutely loved it. There was an incredible interaction between the audience and the stage - it was one of the most cathartic experiences I have ever had in the theatre. I had to go and see it twice.

What was the last piece of music you bought?

A score of Tamerlano by Handel, which I am conducting in the summer at the Buxton Festival. I already have two scores of the work, but I like to know everything about the different editions that are available. The editor has such an important function in the music that we perform. Very often the sources are contradictory, even if they are in the composer’s own hand. The editor has to choose between the various versions and it is vital that performers know as much about this process as possible as it informs and shapes their artistic choices.

What’s the most overrated classical work? - Is there a warhorse whose appeal you really don’t relate to?

I have to say I am allergic to Orff’s Carmina Burana. I can listen to most things but if that comes on I have to leave the room. It is not helped that while I was a student I was lucky enough to be the accompanist of the Twickenham Choral Society. We did great works such as Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Handel’s Israel in Egypt, Bach’s Mass in B minor and then we did Carmina Burana. A whole term of bashing out the orchestral part for choir rehearsals has left me with a strong negative reaction to this day.

Imagine you’re a festival director here in London with unlimited resources. What would you programme - or commission - for your opening event?

I would love to open the London Handel Festival with a flotilla along the Thames with as many audience boats as possible to hear Handel’s Water Music coming from a very grand barge. Then a procession on foot to Green Park for a performance of Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music with a no-expense-spared display. Hopefully the scenery wouldn’t catch fire as happened in the original celebration of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749.

What do you sing in the shower?

Usually whatever I am working on. I love singing and find myself using it as a tool to show so many things in rehearsal. It’s so much easier to show colleagues a gesture or shape by singing it rather than trying to explain in words.

It’s late, you’ve had a few beers, you’re in a Karaoke bar. What do you choose to sing?

Lionel Ritchie’s Hello. When I was at school I sang in a Barbershop quartet. We started with very traditional songs from The Yale Songbook, My Evaline and George Jones. But this was the 80s, so as earnest young men we felt we needed a change of direction. We were inspired by Harvey and the Wallbangers and started doing cover versions. Hello was always my favourite solo number in the group. We were called Banal Chorale. What can I say? It was the 80s!

Laurence Cummings is the Music Director of the 2016 London Handel Festival which runs until 11 April. He conducts a new production of Ariodante whose final performance is tonight.