Their record label describes them rather laboriously as “a Baroque super-group of four superstar Baroque instrumentalists”, but the Retrospect Trio don’t need any fancy titles to prove their quality. Bringing together violinists Sophie Gent and Matthew Truscott (leader of the OAE) and Jonathan Manson on bass viol (principal cello of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra) under the direction of young harpsichordist Matthew Halls, this ensemble is all about unshowy musicianship. Joined last night by soprano Julia Doyle they offered up some of the best Purcell London is likely to see this year – with performances from Mark Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia, not to mention Scholl, Jaroussky and Ensemble Artaserse still fresh in the ears, that’s saying something.

This is the second Sunday in a month that I've sat in the Wigmore Hall and been plunged into an evening of ferocious concentration from the very first bars. Mid-January saw violinist Leonidas Kavakos and his phenomenal pianist Enrico Pace carving out the grim memorial that is Prokofiev's First Violin Sonata, ultimately softened by radiant Schubert. Last night Kavakos's peer Thomas Zehetmair accented the lead in late Beethoven, and since only Shostakovich's last quartet followed, this time there was to be no more human gilding of a very alien lily.

The Wigmore Hall, with its laboriously marbled and gilded period interior, doesn’t exactly scream “rebellion”. Yet for the second time in as many months its conservative classical crowd saw recital conventions discarded like the too-tight bow tie that they are. Players strolled on with relaxed ease, discovered a jam session in progress and decided to join in the fun. The guitars may have been of the Baroque variety, the drum kit replaced with tambour and tambourine, and the bass-line provided by a violone, but last night mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená fronted quite the coolest gig in town.

Christine Brewer singing American song – it’s like Judi Dench in Shakespeare, or an Aaron Sorkin screenplay: it just doesn’t get any better. Forcing the restrained acoustic of the Wigmore to ring as though it were St Paul’s, and persuading a white-haired Friday-night crowd to whoop and clap between numbers until cut off by the next piano introduction, it’s hard to say whether Brewer’s voice or personality carries greater weight. Every bit the equal of the “glad, great-throated nightingale” she sang of, her repertoire may have been from a bygone era but there was nothing dusty about this recital.

No self-mutilation or incest, but plenty of daddy issues at the Wigmore Hall last night in a musical glance through the Bach family album. Carefully keeping Johann Sebastian out of the way (presumably lest he show everyone else up and spoil the fun), Richard Egarr guided us through the work of his four composer sons. Spread across Europe from London to Hamburg and Bologna, the differing influences, fashions and character of each becomes quickly evident. Just a shame that – even in his absence – all remain so comprehensively dwarfed by their father.

No doubt about it, Leonidas Kavakos is one of the world's top 10 live-wire violinists. But here in London he seems to have sold himself a bit short recently with a less than great concerto repertoire (Korngold, Szymanowski's Second). Korngold furnished a springy intermezzo in last night's blockbuster recital, Szymanowski a ravishing second encore, but I went to hear two giddying masterpieces, Prokofiev's First Violin Sonata and Schubert's Fantasy in C. If unknown quantity Enrico Pace could manage to play Richter to Kavakos's David Oistrakh, it might turn out to be awe-inspiring. He did, so it was.

The Sunday Afternoon Song Recitals are a wonderful Wigmore tradition. Filling in that tricky gap between lengthy weekend lunch and early school-night supper, they offer a chunky one-act programme, generous but without the fuss and faff of an interval. Balancing young talent with more established performers, the next few months see (among others) Emma Bell, Anna Grevelius and Isabel Bayrakdarian occupying this slot. Playing to the prevailing mood yesterday afternoon was repertoire from Gounod, Britten’s Cabaret Songs and the UK premiere of Iain Bell’s song cycle Day Turned Into Night. Sitting less comfortably however were Poulenc’s Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire which set proceedings off to a rather inscrutable start.

Mezzo-soprano Christine Rice is seen almost more often on the opera stage than the concert hall platform these days, working regularly for both the Royal Opera and ENO, most recently struggling against weak direction in Handel’s Radamisto. Her range and well-balanced tone make her a desirable soloist, but I still remain to be fully convinced by her acting skills.

These unfortunately were very much at issue in the Poulenc. Apollinaire’s poems are elusive; filled with fractured images and characters, they always seem to end prematurely, catching the listener unawares. Though game in her characterisation of the literal narratives – the gossipy backbiting of “L’Anguille”, the offhand vocal shrug of “Hôtel” – there was an absence where a coherent interpretation needed to be, a sustained tone or a musical gesture to make sense of these epics in miniature. Both she and accompanist Roger Vignoles however did bring demonstrable enjoyment to the set, with Vignoles’s delicate touch playfully highlighting the shift from furrowed-brow Neo-Classicism to music-hall vamping in “Avant le cinéma”.

More satisfying were Gounod’s 3 Mélodies, with their more solid Victorian sensibility. The long lines and caressing lyricism of “Au rossignol” showed Rice’s voice at its most finely spun, and gave us the first real encounter with the power that lies behind, released here to magnificent effect.

British composer Iain Bell’s song cycle Day Turned Into Night takes inspiration from the figure of Queen Victoria. Resolutely monochrome in the national imagination, Bell attempts to flesh out the caricatured black-clad figure with context, setting texts from the Queen’s correspondence leading up to her marriage and then following the death of her husband. It’s a novel idea, and one that gains weight from the surprisingly heartfelt writings. We start with the awkward formality of “My Dearest Uncle”, all truncated phrases and wilful rhythmic hesitations, strikingly at odds with the emotive account of the first meeting between Victoria and Albert. Emotions are allowed greater release in “The honeymoon night”, with its lingering repetitions in the accompaniment, before the mood darkens for the final three songs.

Bell’s harmonic language is unmistakably English, with the shadow of Britten falling over the subversive accompaniments and occasional glances toward bitonality. If there is nothing especially new here, then there is also much to enjoy; Bell’s understanding of vocal writing is evident, and Rice’s instrument a good fit for the cycle’s broad emotional arc.

Closing the afternoon were Britten’s Cabaret Songs, a series of virtuoso vocal feats masquerading as off-the-cuff musical musings and encore fodder. While technically secure, there were a number of interpretative quirks to the performance that didn’t quite ring true. The recitative-like sections in “Tell me the truth about love” for example, while encouraging expressive liberties also demand a certain metrical control if they are not to distort the work’s careful architecture. Pianist and singer parted company here (and later again in “Johnny”) and in each case I would be tempted to side with the more measured Vignoles (pictured above) than the runaway Rice. “Funeral Blues” can be a struggle for mezzos, sitting squarely on the lower break into chest voice. While the emotional tone, with its extrovert show of grief, was thrilling, the vocal mechanics were rather too much on show to allow listeners to surrender to the text.

I can think of few nicer ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than being given a leisurely tour through 19th and 20th-century European song by two such performers. While interpretatively I have my issues with Rice, there is no arguing with the glorious tone to her voice, especially the rounded power of its bottom register. Coupled with the elegant intelligence of Vignoles, the result is reliably delicious.

Not a lot of swooning goes on at the Wigmore Hall. Nor does it seem the kind of institution to endorse rapturous wailing, beating of the breast, or the throwing of either flowers or underwear. All of which leaves one with the problem of how to respond appropriately to a concert such as last night’s by Richard Egarr and countertenor Iestyn Davies. Decorous applause doesn’t quite seem to cut it when faced with such a joyous abundance of talent, and I’d have endured any amount of plague and/or restrictive corsetry for an authentic 18th-century atmosphere in which to experience this ecstatic evening of music.