The Bath festival will have to wait until next year before its new artistic director, Joanna MacGregor, can put her stamp on the programme. In the meantime, it is sticking to tried and tested formulas to reassure the audience.

In the opening concert, given at the Abbey by the English Concert, Torelli's Sonata in D for trumpet, strings and continuo offered a festive fanfare. In the late 17th century, structured patterns of exchange between soloist and ensemble were not yet set, and in the central adagio here it is solo violins whose dialogue holds sway. But the rest of the work is, in essence, a trumpet concerto, and Mark Bennett's high clarion tones rang out splendidly, the articulation crisp and precise.

In Vivaldi's later E Major Violin Concerto, L'Amoroso, the virtuosity is more conspicuous - not that English Concert's director, Andrew Manze, played on that. His style of delivery was unassuming to the point of deference. Nevertheless, the precise and silken sound was totally engaging.

The English Concert was joined by Nigel Short's Tenebrae for two familiar choral works. In Dixit Dominus, the 22-year-old Handel may have been showing off his brilliant technique, but the effects are still impressive, with the duet De Torrente in Via Bibet achieving an ethereal beauty. The resonant acoustic inevitably submerged some of the contrapuntal detail; it wasn't until Vivaldi's Gloria that Tenebrae's full sound came into its own.

While the Abbey constitutes the heart of the festival, the atmosphere of recitals on Bath's rural periphery is more informal but intimate. At St Mary's, Timsbury, guitarist Morgan Szymanski brought the vibrant colour of his native Mexico and South America to a damp Sunday afternoon. His homage to the guitar masters was sincere, but his own considerable gifts shone through, with the shaping of the cantilena and elegant tracery of Tarrega's Capricho Arabe a real highlight.