The photograph on the cover of Jessica Duchen’s magnificent new biography of Dame Myra Hess shows a statuesque lady sitting at the keyboard, hair swept back into the neatest of buns. Add a pair of half-moon spectacles and she could be Dr Evadne Hinge, accompanist to Dame Hilda Bracket. This isn’t to imply that Dame Myra looked like a man in drag, but then neither did the ‘Dear Ladies’ played by George Logan and Patrick Fyffe, some of whose fans thought the singing spinsters actually were women.