He pauses, as if hesitant to mention the godhead of computer design aloud, and adds, Maybe even something Apple would be interested in.

The king’s authority held sway not only over the knight’s mighty sword, but also over the episcopal cross and aspergillum: for the bishops plied back and forth between court and province like all the other lords.

The “deceptively spacious” cliche is accurate in the case of this house near the corner of Castlepark Road and Hyde Road: from the front, it looks like a traditional 1930s home. But the current owners, who moved here 23 years ago, have extended it three times since then; now, with two levels at the back, it has 346sq m (3,725sq ft) of space.

She offered three encores: an elegant Scarlatti Sonata in D minor (K. 9), Rachmaninoff’s flashy transcription of the gopak from Mussorgsky’s “Sorochintsy Fair,” and Moritz Moszkowski’s scintillating étude “Sparks.”