THE University of York’s Baroque Day, which morphed into a Classical Day entitled Enlightenment & Invention, featured three events centred on an afternoon fortepiano recital by the New Zealand expert Kemp English.

It marked the bicentenary of the death on May 7 of Bohemian composer Leopold Kozeluch, an important forerunner of Schubert, whose 50 keyboard sonatas Dr English has just finished recording. The two sonatas he included revealed a lively personality with a real sense of theatre, which English exploited to the full. Indeed, he secured a surprisingly wide dynamic range from his instrument.

Both sonatas betrayed their Viennese origins. Sonata No 7 (1780) was typically rococo, though English galloped through some of its ornamentation. But he revelled in the dramatic "Storm and Stress" in No 36 in F minor (1793), whose pathos-laden slow opening foreshadowed Beethoven. Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, D.780, played between them, contrasted with Kozeluch’s relatively unadventurous harmonies.

The summer evening event focused on Jonathan Sage’s basset clarinet, an extended instrument whose revival was pioneered by Sage’s mentor, the late Alan Hacker. Garrett Sholdice has written Eighteen Cadences for basset and string quartet, premiered here in his memory. As its title implies, its sections are brief, not to say diaphanous, with the clarinet ruminating gently while the strings intermittently encircle it vividly. The effect was intriguingly dreamlike.

It was deliberately paired with Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, whose outer movements bubbled with a sense of fun. But it was the slow movement that highlighted Sage’s ability to deliver a hypnotic pianissimo, in a fashion strongly reminiscent of his teacher; all five players united to draw the audience inside its intimate textures. It was balanced by a balletic minuet and trio.

Earlier, the Keats Quartet had given an impassioned account of Mendelssohn’s sixth and last quartet, Op 80 in F minor, which was written in the wake of his sister Fanny’s sudden death. Balance would have been improved had the cello been facing the audience, but the group did not soft-pedal the composer’s discords, which emerged angrily. Only in the tearful Adagio was there any real feeling of catharsis. In that sense, Glazunov’s melancholy Rêverie Orientale – for all five players – made an ideal opener.