The annual Lancaster Festival, identified in the program brochure as a “world-class celebration of music & the arts,” began its 12-day run last night in St. Mary Church.

The all-Baroque program featured the Chicago Brass Quintet and Columbus organist G. Dene Barnard as guests, along with the Festival Brass and members of the Festival Orchestra conducted by Festival Music Director Gary Sheldon.

It was with brief, minor exceptions an evening of exhilarating music-making. The choice of music and the performances were well-calculated by Sheldon to take advantage of the live interior of the church while not being overwhelmed by it.

The program began with three excerpts from Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music, arranged for an all-brass ensemble and performed with great elan by the Lancaster Festival Brass.

Barnard then treated the audience to a masterful reading of J.S. Bach’s monumental Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor. There was clarity, momentum and a stunning climax.

Another high point was Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 for four soloists with small orchestra. Michael Davis, violin; Margaret Swinchoski, flute; Rhondda May, oboe; and Matt Lee, trumpet; were superb, displaying virtuosity, finesse and sensitivity to each other. Lee’s mastery of the stratospherically high trumpet part was especially notable. Sheldon conducted from the harpsichord. He and a single cello provided the harmonic and rhythmic base for the especially affecting slow movement.

The Chicago Brass Quintet offered brilliant arrangements of a Bach cantata chorus (the tuba was stunning) and a fascinating mystery piece by William Boyce entitled Centone No. 11. I don’t know what a Centone is, but it was masterfully played and thoroughly enjoyable.

The concert concluded with the popular Canon by Pachelbel, this time with its rarely heard Gigue attached. Most of the audience, who had apparently never heard the Gigue and thought is was the Trumpet Voluntary by Jeremiah Clarke, rose to its feet for a deserved, if premature, ovation.