You might not imagine that a whole day of German lieder would fire the imaginations of Ryedale’s gentle folk.

You would be wrong. The whole panoply of composers from Schubert to Schoenberg - before the latter went off piste - was on view, with the prospect of Joan Rodgers to top it off.

Singers can often be fragile (Have you ever come across one who admitted to being in perfect voice? Thought not) and tonsillitis had laid low the morning’s tenor. But his replacement, the young baritone Benedict Nelson, was in many ways an admirable replacement.

With almost no notice, he could hardly be expected to reel off the 15 songs of Schubert’s Schwanengesang (Swan Song) by heart.

His eyes were consequently more focused on his copy than his audience. Not his fault. But he already boasts a burnished tone, the like of which most singers labour many years to achieve.

He was exciting in Abschied (Farewell), found a nice lilt for the fisher girl, and lightened his generally firm tone for Am Meer (By the Sea).

He must now begin to vary his vocal colours and make room for more verbal shading. But he has huge potential. Soprano Eleanor Laugharne and mezzo Martha Jones had kicked off adroitly in four earlier songs.

Miss Rodgers explored the later end of the lieder spectrum. She, too, had been suffering, and took a little time to play herself in. Nine Wolf songs were understandably cautious, although the amatory first steps of a young maid were absolutely true-to-life and she found a nicely confidential staccato for her Elf Song (no safety there).

Her tone was more rounded for a Mahler group. But it was, unexpectedly perhaps, in three songs by Liszt - underrated these days as a song-writer - that she conjured the most entrancingly intimate atmosphere.

By now, she was ready for Schoenberg in romantic vein and let her hair down wittily in seven of his cabaret parodies of 1901. Christopher Glynn’s deft pianism provided glowing support throughout the day.