The Oxford Chamber Music Festival is an event I always look forward to. This year’s theme, White Nights, offered a smorgasbord of musical delights from Scandinavia, the Baltics and St Petersburg. The enthusiasm of the musicians who come together and perform for the festival is infectious and the music making is often inspired. All the elements which make the series special were evident at the two concerts I attended.

The opening concert on Wednesday evening began with Borodin’s second string quartet, a gloriously warm and romantic piece reminiscent of the Janacek quartets. The work recalls the awakening love between the composer and his pianist wife 20 years before and there was no lack of passion in the performance. Daniel Cohen’s cello playing was particularly ravishing.

One of the regular pleasures of the festival is the discovery of unfamiliar works. Sibelius’s Malinconia for cello and piano was just such a revelation. The sombre, sustained passages on the cello contrast strikingly with the rumbling, angry piano. The two instruments seem in constant contention with never a meeting point. Bjorg Vaernes Lewis and Bengt Forsberg gave a compelling account. The absence of progression or resolution was wonderfully handled.

Several works by the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg featured during the festival this year. Ablauf (expiration) for clarinet and two bass drums followed the Sibelius. Chen Halevi on the clarinet displayed superb mastery in this demanding virtuoso monologue.

Intensive rehearsal schedules and an ambitious programme can result in the occasional late start and minor mishaps in performance, but that’s all part of what makes this festival so alive.

The Lindberg piece acquired an unintended comic aspect when one of the percussionists seemed to be the only person in the room unaware that his bass drum threatened to topple from its stand. The situation was rescued in the nick of time by an alert stagehand.

Also a lack of time to prepare Johan Svendsen’s Octet for the opening event meant only one movement was played. But Mendelssohn’s Octet, performed as a substitute, proved ample compensation. This popular work of the composer’s youth was a perfect way to end the opening evening. Its driving energy, self-confidence and inventiveness seemed to sum up so much of what the festival is about.

Two days later, the Friday lunchtime recital also featured great performances and inspired programming. An arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet by Vladimir Mendelssohn, one of the festival performers, opened the concert. This engaging adaptation for small chamber ensemble captured wonderfully the spirit of the original and the performers clearly had great fun playing it.

Greig’s second violin sonata followed, a folk-inspired piece capably delivered by Atle Sponberg and Bengt Forsberg. But it was the piano quartet of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks which stole the show. Vasks’s music is generally solemn. This work, which I hadn’t heard before, was characteristic in its unremitting minor-key sombreness. I have been an admirer of Vasks for many years and it was a real treat to hear this work live.