THIS exhilarating festival of English music reached its climax over the week-end. Daytimes were filled with the final of the Early Music Network International Young Artists' Competition (another natty title). Sunny evenings saw explorations of choral music in the 16th century and orchestral in the 18th.

Cardinall's Musick, eight singers conducted and introduced by their co-founder Andrew Carwood at Central Methodist Church, toured engagingly through the life of Queen Elizabeth I. It was useful to have the opening perspective of music written at the time of her birth, by her father, Tye and Taverner. We also heard some rare Lassus, lauding an English cardinal. But it was the well-balanced all-male quartet in Tallis and Sheppard that brought home the first-fruit of the English musical reformation: intelligibility in the vernacular.

After Byrd's Haec Dies - its central dance beautifully smooth - there was a sudden switch to the secular, madrigals and their offshoots, but little change in the group's approach, which could have been lighter. Here, the top soprano tended to stridency, and one of the basses was a notch too aggressive. But the closing Gibbons, O Clap Your Hands, proved the group's supreme competence in sacred repertory.

The King's Consort, in its orchestral guise at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, boasted a baker's dozen of strings, along with pairs of oboes and recorders, with Robert King ducking and weaving at the harpsichord. Foreign composers based in England naturally included Handel - three appearances here - and the influential Geminiani, whose volatile style caused several native composers to loosen their collars.

There was a wonderful stereophony when a violinist, Rebecca Miles, took up a recorder stage-left to partner Zilla Gillman, stage-right, in a Boyce symphony. Alexandra Bellamy contributed a mellifluous, long-breathed oboe to a sumptuous Handel Largo

But it was a pair of northerners who made the greatest impact. John Hebden, who opened his career in York, offered several harmonic surprises in his Concerto No 2. The Newcastle-based Charles Avison was still more startling. The sixth of his 12 concertos inspired by Scarlatti sonatas contains a Con Furia, whose violin solo inspired breathtaking virtuosity from Simon Jones. He repeated the feat in an encore, at still greater speed. He typified the fearlessness of all his colleagues.

For the record, the young artists' competition was won by Sav£di (Latvian for 'in a different way'), two sopranos and a harpist from Latvia, Germany and France. They will give a full concert next year. A marvellous week.

Updated: 16:23 Monday, July 14, 2003