On 2 May the Frick Collection in New York was closed to the public. However, BBC Producer Les Pratt and I had the special privilege of being allowed in to make four Lunchtime Concerts and an episode of the Early Music Show for Radio 3. Being let loose in the galleries I was reminded of the film trilogy Night at the Museum in which an ancient curse causes animals and exhibits on display to come to life after hours. Well, there was no ancient curse at work here but the works of art certainly came to life with characters, scenes, and stories that made for an unforgettable day.

The Frick Collection is a beautiful mansion found to the East of Central Park, just off Fifth Avenue. It was built by Henry Clay Frick, who was one of America’s most successful coke and steel industrialists, and also an avid art collector. On his death in 1919 his wealth of paintings and sculptures, from Titian and Bellini to Degas and Turner, were bequeathed to the public. Naturally there is a magnificent music room and it has staged a regular series of chamber music concerts since 1938.

Joyce Bodig, Frick Concerts Coordinator since 1983, let us into this oasis of tranquility. She is a woman with a keen musical ear and clearly knows how to throw a splendid party in addition to a classy concert. Since its inauguration, the Concert Series has played host to a veritable Who’s Who of the music world and especially the early music world. The Music Room is a vision of grandeur from a bygone time; light fills the damask-papered walls from the elegant central dome. TS Eliot read from his poems here but if walls could talk, or sing or play, we can only imagine the secrets they would tell alongside sounds of performances not recorded. The archives are a treasure trove. My old PhD hat went on immediately as characters I’ve written about in London from the Busch Quartet to Artur Schnabel, and Ralf Kirkpatrick to Isaac Stern, Alfred Brendel, and Wanda Landowska, popped up across the pond.

In a lifetime, how often do you get a private wander around a priceless art collection? More than that, how many times are you accompanied by the Chief Curator who brings each piece to life, giving you insights you would never have otherwise noticed? Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier Salomon is a seriously sophisticated man with that enviable skill of captivating an audience with little known details. I was totally hooked. Half the time I forgot I was working I was so absorbed in what he was saying (cue lots of retakes on my part).

Music features heavily throughout the collection and the characters on the walls seemed to demand accompaniment. Take for example, Vermeer’s portrait Girl Interrupted at her Music: is the male figure her teacher or her lover? Xavier counselled us to look to the picture within the picture and let Cupid help you decide. Painted in the year of Purcell’s birth what could be more appropriate than the depiction of Cupid from the Restoration spectacular King Arthur? Cue Anne Sofie Von Otter, accompanied by the lute and harpsichord of Thomas Dunford and Jonathan Cohen.

I’ve always been fascinated by the art that composers might have seen and was part of their cultural aesthetic. For instance, Degas’ intricate work The Rehearsal – a juxtaposing old and young, music and movement, (and the humour of a seemingly dismembered dancer’s leg), was likely known to Debussy as he often visited the home of painter, collector, and patron Henry Lerolle. Debussy is of course associated with the Impressionist school despite it being a term that he didn’t like, but hearing his demanding sonata cello and piano exemplified his artistry in the hands of Nicolas Altstaedt and Alexander Lonquich.

It was as if the portraits on the walls were presiding over the music wherever we went and in an almost Hogwartian fashion oversaw the musical examples. Whether Holbein’s two Thomases: Cromwell and More glowering at each other over the fireplace (Frick as architect of this), or the knowing look of Van Dyke’s portrait of musician, poet, and composer Nicholas Lanier, the concert performances not only of von Otter and Altstaedt., but also the Minetti Quartet and Flanders Recorder Quartet, fuelled the imagination.

And the encounters kept coming. Wanda Landowska was a regular Frick performer between 1943 and 1954 and she always insisted on a huge, and particularly heavy, lamp on stage to light her music. In a moment of mutual discovery during our visit, the lamp was identified in Xavier’s office. The shade had been changed but Joyce had a feeling she knew where it might be. The place is just bursting with musical and artistic history.

Recording the final links in the library, under the watchful eye of Frick’s own portrait, my eyes hungrily scanned the walls for paintings we’d not had time to look at – masterpieces by Turner, Constable, and Gainsborough alongside exquisite works of artists I still need to learn about.

On leaving, a final glance back into stillness of the beautiful inner courtyard garden reaffirmed my overwhelming impression of the place – it could have been just as Frick left it.