THERE must be few places more fitted or apt for the performance of music of the Renaissance than Markenfield Hall, the moated and fortified Manor House estate, near Ripon, first established in the 14th century.

Perhaps one of the least well-known of the region’s treasures, it certainly made for a stunning venue for two of the current Ripon Festival concerts by the three musicians of Pantagruel Renaissance Musicke, whose lutes, flutes, gitterns, citterns and soprano took their afternoon performance, Lady Louthian’s Lilte, through a programme of ballads, ayres and dances from 17th-century Scotland.

This was a programme that exploited the skills of the group's instrumentalists, Dominik Schneider and Mark Wheeler, and of soprano Anna Maria Wierod, in presenting a wide range of solos, duos and vocals from the Scottish repertoire of the age. While much of their programme reflected the styles of the Renaissance, it also provided clear links with both the classical styles of the age and the Scottish folk traditions heard today, with at least one of the tunes strongly related to that of the modern Tyneside folk repertoire.

It was presented in costume of the age and with a style and panache that made for an enjoyable occasion and, presumably equally so in the evening concert that followed.

Dave Robson