One of the UK’s most distinguished figures in early music, Trevor Pinnock, will open the festival with a programme that includes Bach’s Toccata in D major and the Italian Concerto, along with masterpieces by the great keyboard composers Sweelinck and Froberger.

The magisterial and ferociously virtuosic Goldberg Variations (brought to the attention of so many in memorable performances on the piano by artists such as Glenn Gould) will be given a breathtakingly dazzling outing by one of Europe’s youngest stars of the European early music scene, the French harpsichordist Benjamin Alard, in his debut UK performance.

Benjamin will be joined in subsequent concerts by the French Ensemble La Canzona and by two other French soloists: another young French star François Guerrier, and the very distinguished harpsichordist Elisabeth Joyé. In these two concerts (over Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon) BEMF offers its public a rare opportunity to hear the entire corpus of concertos for harpsichord and strings, by Bach. These include not only six solo concertos but also all the concerts for two, three and four harpsichords. For the latter, French guests will in turn be joined by the English harpsichordist Christine Whiffen (one of an elite club of British harpsichords to have been a prizewinner at the world-renowned Bruges harpsichord competition, of which Benjamin Alard recently became the youngest winner ever, at the age of nineteen). These two concerts take place in the central weekend of the festival, on 4th and 5th of November — providing an appropriate background for what will truly be a spectacle of keyboard fireworks!

The final concert of the festival showcases the fortepiano, the forerunner of the pianoforte. In an absolutely delightful programme of music by Haydn, Mozart and others, the superb keyboard player Carole Cerasi will be joined by the exquisite English soprano Julia Gooding. A very unusual festival — not to be missed.