Now in its fifth year, the East Neuk festival is firmly established both for its excellent chamber music and its offbeat strand of programming concerts in quirky locations. Dunino Den, a natural rock-cut basin in the woods, was the setting for an atmospheric programme in which the charismatic former bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, read texts on the subject of nature interspersed with solos from flautist Alison Mitchell, unseen on the rocks high above.

There was more outdoor art from Martin Parker's site-specific electronic works inspired by three East Neuk locations. While the St Fillan's cave piece didn't work for me (it's difficult to feel a sense of mystery with harsh safety lighting and visitors milling around), his Crail Harbour piece was more successful as a tangible evocation of the dominating influence of the sea.

Away from the natural setting, there were Haydn string quartets and various quintets from the Doric Quartet and clarinettist Maximiliano Martín, whose performance of the Weber Quintet was a theatrical tour de force.

If the Doric's Haydn was lovingly and carefully moulded, then the Leipzig Quartet's Schumann and Mendelssohn was on another level of intensity altogether, rock solid and passionate. Pianist Christian Zacharias continued his association with the festival with three concerts that paired him with a variety of musicians – baritone Stephan Loges, the Leopold Trio and the Leipzig Quartet. His was decidedly the more interesting contribution to the Rellstab settings from Schubert's Schwanengesang, painting the text where Loges seemed more intent on enunciating it, but it was the towering, rather unsettling performance of the composer's A major Sonata D959 that left a lasting impression.