The Festival has attracted top performers from the outset, including Jordi Savall (Hespèrion XX) and Michel Chapuis the first year, and Ton Koopman and Martin Gester the following autumn. Over the past 24 years, many musicians and ensembles such as Dominique Vellard (The Gilles Binchois Ensemble) and London Baroque (which will appear this year with soprano Lynne Dawson) have returned to Ribeauvillé again and again.

The town’s charming location in the wine-growing region of southern Alsace has certainly contributed to the Festival’s success, as has the beauty of its carefully restored medieval half-timbered houses with their pastel colours and window frames in pink sandstone. This year’s opening concert will be given by organist Charles Ablitzer and La Compagnie Musical, conducted by Josep Cabré, who will perform François Couperin’s Messe pour les couvents, one of the composer’s two organ masses.

Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, who are right at home in French 17th-century repertoire, will also regale the public with sacred music on 21 September. Their programme, entitled “Faste des cathedrals sous Louis XIV”, is to include works by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Henri Férnand and Pierre Bouteiller. On 28 September La Capilla Flamenca, conducted by Dirk Snellings, will give a musical biography of Marguerite of Austria called “Dulcis Melancholia”; Pierre de la Rue’s Pourquoy non ne veul je morir and Josquin Desprez’s Belle pour l’amour de vous will be heard.

On 5 October Domenico Scarlatti’s 16 sonatas from the Essercizi per gravicembalo will be performed by Kenneth Weiss, who has also made a recording of the Essercizi for the Parisian label Satirino Records. On 11 October the ensembles Discantus and Alla Francesca will be directed by Brigitte Lesne and Pierre Hamon. They will present an anthology of medieval songs touching on the theme of the garden and its sacred and profane symbolism in their amusingly titled programme “On Earth As It Is In Heaven”.

Dominique Visse will conduct the Ensemble Clément Janequin on 18 October in a programme based on Spanish renaissance music by Christobald de Morales (c. 1500-1553) and Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611). The final evening, on Sunday 26 October, will feature Italian instrumental music (Gabrieli, Cima, Grandi and Barbarino) played by Musica Fiata and La Capella Ducale, conducted by Roland Wilson. For further details, consult www.festival-ribeauville.com