Even Les Arts Florissants can get things wrong.
What, on paper, looked like an entrancing morning pot-pourri planted amid stagings of David et Jonathas soon showed itself to be a victim of duration problems in a hot and humid Queen's Hall from which you increasingly found yourself longing to escape.
When a programme calculated to end at 12.45pm is still in progress more than half an hour later, it becomes clear the performers have fallen into the old misapprehension whereby too much is deemed insufficient. Although the art of overrunning was once an established feature of French baroque practice, it did not bring welcome authenticity to a busy modern festival where audiences have other events to attend.
Nor did the music profit from a programme designed to display steadily increasing genius on the part of the chosen composers. By the time the second, more inspired half was under way, unannounced cuts were beginning to be observed, and the printed programme, complete with texts and translations, started to look perplexingly disarrayed.
Sadly it was Rameau, greatest of French baroque composers, who suffered most, even if what we heard of his Indes Galantes sounded sensationally inspired. The four soloists, including the young Glasgow soprano Rachel Redmond, all rose to the occasion. Elodie Fonnard brought extravagant eloquence to Charpentier's Medea, sizzling with contempt for Jason in the person of the expressive young Belgian tenor Reinoud van Mechelen.
The lanky French bass Pierre Bessiere gave his various identities a sombre, succulent plumminess. Words were not always as clear as expected, though the orchestra, conducted by the dapper Paul Agnew, provided fine baroque colouring.
HHH
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