York can no longer take for granted a performance of one of the Bach Passions during Lent. The Minster Bach Society is sadly defunct. If the city’s two largest choirs decide otherwise, Passion-lovers are left bereft.

Yorkshire Bach Choir’s programme of two lesser Bach oratorios on Saturday (albeit intended for Easter and Ascension), sandwiching his Magnificat in D, was the equivalent of three cantatas. But it was a question of beggars not being choosers.

Revisiting this choir is always a pleasure, not least when the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists are in attendance.

Listening to the kind of manic trumpet lines Bach inserts in the finale to the Ascension Oratorio (otherwise known as Cantata 11), it is wonderfully reassuring to have the peerless Crispian Steele-Perkins leading the charge.

Stir in solo work of the calibre of Edwina Smith’s lyrical flute and James Eastaway’s mellifluous oboe and you have a pretty potent mixture.

Not forgetting the consistently unruffled strings, who did well just to survive the lightning-paced Deposuit Potentes in the Magnificat, alongside Jason Darnell’s sure-footed tenor.

The choir was also on typically emphatic form.

Chorale entries in one chorus were less than convincing, but with Peter Seymour’s tempos tending towards the rapid, semi-quavers were still cleanly articulated.

All the aria soloists stepped confidently out of their choral roles – never an easy proposition – with Wendy Goodson’s blithe soprano and Simon Harper’s promising bass especially catching the ear. A Passion next year?