NO, the Ryedale Festival has not begun. We had the 2016 "launch" at Helmsley in April, followed on Wednesday by this tempting double taster in York. It featured the Heath Quartet and harpist Catrin Finch who are headlining the festival proper, which begins on July 15.

The Heaths made tremendous waves in last year’s festival with their adventurous attack on the six Bartók quartets, which was mind-blowing even for jaded old critics. They are playing late Beethoven here in July. But for now it was Tchaikovsky’s First, Opus 11 in D, which, as John Warrack recalled in his programme note, was virtually the first string quartet by a Russian composer.

The Heaths kept the start unvarnished, without vibrato, opening out gloriously with its second theme and accelerating excitingly at the end of the development section. Their hymn-like, muted slow movement was riveting. The folksy scherzo was neatly percussive, and the finale, after bursts of syncopation, ended with a thrilling race for the tape. The Heaths’ enthusiasm was irrepressible throughout.

Switching to the Merchant Taylors’, which is celebrating its sexcentenary this year, we had a delightful potpourri from the nimble Miss Finch. She made light of a moto perpetuo from a Bach solo violin partita before relaxing into Debussy’s Girl With The Flaxen Hair. Nino Rota’s Sarabanda e Toccata of 1945 was less imaginative, but Paul Patterson’s Mosquito Massacre was pure theatre, wittily done, and Godefroid’s Carnival Of Venice variations wonderfully deft.