Revisiting “Brideshead” in the evening sunshine with a glass of wine in hand would be pleasure enough.

But stir in a Romantic piano quintet, some 18th-century frivolities and – for the good of your soul – the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, and you have a heady cocktail.

It was odd to begin in the Long Gallery with Dvorak's Second Piano Quintet and then go backwards in time. In retrospect, my group probably experienced the Szymanowski Quartet and Christopher Glynn at their freshest. For the players, like the others involved on Thursday, were faced with delivering it three times for their revolving audiences.

A lyrical opening and an unusually nostalgic dumka turned out to be merely canapés to a furious scherzo and a rolling, heart-warming finale. So to the Chapel, where the Fitzwilliam Quartet and organist Peter Seymour gave lively backing to two young singers in the bitter-sweet Pergolesi, a poignant product of his last weeks.

Tempos here were brisk enough to emphasize the score's more free-wheeling aspects, a sense of dance assuaging the sorrow. Grace Davidson's cool, pin-point soprano was balanced by the weightier mezzo of Rachael Cox. They chiselled shapely phrasing.

Two virtuosos revelled in the Great Hall. With harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani supporting Erik Bosgraaf's twirling recorders, this was luxury casting. Bosgraaf was everywhere mesmerising: extraordinary speed allied to extravagant decorations, in sonatas by Wassenauer and Handel, alongside a grandiose chaconne by Blow. Esfahani matched him every step of the way. Christmas had come early.