Musical marriages are the theme of this year's festival.

Nowhere is this being more dramatically treated than in Ensemble Lucidarium's Kehi Kinnor, a re-enactment of a Jewish wedding in Renaissance Italy, given at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall.

The group's octet of instrumentalists, three of whom also sang, was complemented by two historical dancers playing the happy couple.

It was not just that Bruna Gondoni and Marco Bendoni looked splendid in a variety of period costumes; they also moved with courtly grace, never quite touching until after the marriage (linked only by a handkerchief) and evoking all the expectation and ecstasy of the occasion.

Most delightful of all was the bride’s ritual bath (mikveh), where a blue-tinged, transparent silk stole replaced real water. All the choreography was apparently authentic.

The music itself was a cross between 15th-century styles and the more melancholic, Catalan-influenced – we would perhaps instinctively say Moorish – harmonies that are often associated with Hebrew rituals.

Everything was in minor keys until the actual ceremony under the wedding canopy. Here Enrico Fink’s tenor took on more solemn, cantorial tones, a contrast to some of the comic byplay he adopted while instruments tuned or the couple consummated their marriage off-stage.

But the most effective singing came in a surprising soprano paean to Venus, accompanied by solo viol. After the wedding, lutes and guitars strummed more excitedly as the couple broke into a sprightly saltarello. It was a thoroughly charming, not to say riveting, occasion.

Late-night concerts have an aura of their own and the third and final part of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers – the rarely-heard Mass In Illo Tempore (At That Time) – was no exception in St George’s Church, Walmgate.

With intermittent assistance from two cornets and a quartet of trombones, 17 voices from York University Chamber Choir made merry with Monteverdi's early, fruitier textures, conducted by Robert Hollingworth.

After the Credo, the choir settled into a smoother blend. With instruments rejoining after a gentler approach to the Sanctus and Benedictus, the Agnus Dei made a sleek, tranquil finale.