He kept a clavichord in the back seat of his Rolls Royce. A pet giraffe roamed the grounds of his estate. He invited a horse to his indoor tea parties. He constructed a 100-foot folly tower, “just to annoy the neighbors.”

Today is the birthday of Gerald Hugh Thyrwitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (1883-1950), whose enduring reputation is as one of England’s great eccentrics. More than likely, he was perfectly sane, as sane as you or I, but that sanity was leavened by a highly cultivated sense of the absurd.

A multitalented individual, Berners’ fortune allowed him the luxury to indulge his whims and enthusiasms. He wrote wry and entertaining books, he became a painter (he included moustaches in his portraits, whether the sitter had one or not), and he composed some thoroughly delightful music.

His most famous work is “The Triumph of Neptune,” one of only two ballets commissioned from English composers by the Ballets Russes. The work became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham, who made multiple recordings of it.

I hope you’ll join me for music by Lord Berners. His will be among the birthday anniversaries we’ll observe today, between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache