In the main series there are four interesting visits from overseas. On 15 July the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble joins the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists for Campra’s Missa da Requiem and a selection of theatre music by Rameau. The connection between the performers is that Rosemary Nalden of the English Baroque Soloists is very closely linked with the Buskaid Soweto String project, which brings high-level string training to underprivileged South Africans.

On 23 July, the Handel and Haydn Society from Boston makes its Proms debut under Sir Roger Norrington, performing Haydn’s The Seasons (in German). They are followed on 7 August by the Bach Collegium Japan under Masaaki Suzuki with three of Bach’s Leipzig cantatas and the “short” Mass in G, BWV236. On 23 August there is a fascinating Anglo-German co-operation, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment joining the Freiburg Baroque orchestra in a programme mostly devoted to music by Handel, finishing with his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

 Five other early music events are all given by UK-based groups. On 17 July the BBC Singers, with the Tallis Scholars and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, under Peter Phillips and Davitt Moroney, perform music by Striggio, Lassus and Tallis, ending with the first modern performance of Striggio’s once celebrated — and now newly re-discovered — Missa Ecco si beato giorno. The BBC Singers return on 3 September under David Hill for a selection of motets by Buxtehude, with Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater and Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecelia.

The English Concert’s contribution is an afternoon performance conducted by Laurence Cummings on 18 August of vocal (with tenor Mark Padmore) and instrumental music by three under-rated composers of the English 18th century — Boyce, Arne and the younger Thomas Linley — concluding with music from Handel’s Water Music suites.