After opening in York Minster the previous night, the festival moved from prayer to passion, as the English Concert - effectively a Baroque chamber orchestra, under Harry Bicket - trumpeted Handel’s arrival in London.

For a musician on the make, London was the place to be in 1610. Hotfoot from Italy, Handel was keen to promote all musical matters Mediterranean.

So we had Vivaldi’s sparkling Cello Concerto, RV420 - one of five he wrote in A minor alone - sounding like a double cello concerto when the concertino group played. Joseph Crouch was the supple soloist, Piroska Baranyay his continuo partner.

The fine oboe concerto by Alessandro, the lesser-known of the Marcello brothers, brought out the very best of Katharina Spreckelsen, whose breath control in the opening Andante was extraordinary. Probably something to do with her marathon running. A breakneck finale found her undaunted.

Apart from an engaging Concerto Grosso, Op 3 No 2- with Spreckelsen again to the fore in its limpid Largo - the focus elsewhere was on Lucy Crowe’s soprano, lithe and intense in two Handel cantatas and three arias from his Agrippina.

In the ‘rage’ aria from Armida Abbandonata, she could hardly have been more impassioned. Equally, in the middle of Alpestre Monte, she delivered the most liquid legato.

But her flighty Poppaea and, even more, her treacherous Agrippina offered full rein to her breathtaking coloratura. Bicket and his band gave strong support.