The opening event on the same evening, “Fallen: A Fantasy in Music, Drama & Film” features Musica Secreta in a programme relating the story of a young 17th-century noblewoman forced to abandon the secular world for life as an enclosed nun in an Italian convent. The musical component in this multi-media presentation includes works by Josquin, Wert, Grandi and Monteverdi.

“Baroque Concert in the Forbidden City”, the programme on the following afternoon, features the London debut of Paris-based XVII-21 Musique des Lumières under director Jean-Christophe Frisch, who will be combine with the Chinese ensemble Fleur de Prunus to perform music associated with European missionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries juxtaposed with traditional Chinese pieces. Following the concert, Frisch will join Christina Pluhar, along with scholars David Irving and Geoffrey Baker in a discussion on the weekend’s theme. In the evening Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata return after a highly successful visit to last year’s weekend to present “Los Impossibles: Songs and Dances from the Old and New Worlds”, which finds L’Arpeggiata joining forces with the King’s Singers to explore the dynamic between traditional and art music from the Iberian Peninsula and the New World.

To complete an intensive day, soprano Catherine Bott’s programme “Convivencia” brings together Western and Arabic musical traditions from the 15th and 16th centuries, including works by Milan, Pisador and Narvaez. The first of two concerts on Sunday 16 September will be given by His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts, again with the participation of the King’s Singers, who devote themselves to the highly productive relationship between Giovanni Gabrieli and Schütz in “When Schütz Met Gabrieli”, focussing on the influence the Venetian exerted not only on Schütz, but also on music north of the Alps generally.

Between this and the evening concert comes an illustrated talk, “Handel and the Castrati”, given by countertenor Nicholas Clapton. Finally, and appropriately for the Buxtehude tercentenary commemorations, the Choir of Clare College Cambridge and the viol consort Fretwork invite us to discover what happened “When Bach Met Buxtehude”. Centred on a performance of Buxtehude’s magnificent cantata cycle Menbra Jesu nostri, the concert will also include two of Bach’s motets. Further details from www.southbankcentre.co.uk