Countertenor Gérard Lesne and harpsichordist Blandine Rannou follow this with a recital of music by Campra, de Brossard, Lorenziani and Bononcini. Entering the theatrical realm there is an exploration of the fables of La Fontaine and music by Couperin in which harpsichordist Armelle Roux combines with the words and baroque gestures of Jean-Denis Monory.

The French strand ends with a music-theatre creation inspired by Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin, with three actors from France and the Czech Collegium Marianum. The theme of music and dance is picked up in two programmes of dance and music, one inspired by Da Vinci’s painting Lady with an Ermine and the other by the history of the baroque dance La Folia. There are also four purely musical events.

Violinist Riccardo Minsai joins Giulia Nuti on harpsichord and piano for a recital of music by Bach, Veracini, Leclair and Mozart, while the focus is thrown back a century for an offering of music from the Holy Roman Empire performed by the Austrian ensemble Echo du Danube under artistic director Christian Zincke, with Rainer Johannsen (dulcian).

The festival closes with a programme of Spanish sacred and secular music from the 17th and 18th centuries performed by mezzo-soprano Marta Infante and baroque harpist Manuel Vilas, and a musical journey in the footsteps of the cornett by German ensemble Les Cornets Noirs.