This is Martyn Brabbins' first festival as Cheltenham's artistic director, and it is clear that he is intent on leading from the front. He is conducting the first and last concert, and throwing in a Tchaikovsky marathon - performances of all the numbered symphonies in a single day - for good measure. Tchaikovsky and Russian music in general are a theme of this year's programme (the music of Constant Lambert and Jonathan Harvey are others) and there was some of it in Brabbins' opening concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony - Manfred, the symphony that Tchaikovsky based on Byron's poem. It was presented with certainty and robust orchestral colour by Brabbins, whose credentials in the Russian repertoire (he studied conducting in St Petersburg with Ilya Musin) are impeccable.

There was a premiere in the concert, too; a statement of intent that whatever other changes of emphasis Brabbins may bring to Cheltenham, he will maintain the festival's commitment to new music. Julian Anderson's Eden is not a major piece but a little homage to the sculptor Brancusi. It uses both conventional and non-tempered tunings, working itself up to a glassy climax, then subsiding to end as it began, with a lonely viola solo.

In both the new work and the symphony the playing was first class, but between them came a performance of Bartok's Second Violin Concerto over which it might be better to draw a veil. Brabbins and his soloist, Viktoria Mullova, seemed to have different views on the approach to take, to the extent of launching the first movement at different tempi and only ever reaching the sketchiest of compromises. Mullova's playing was detached and uninvolved throughout, which suited the slow movement, but meant that the outer ones fell nervously flat. Perhaps most of the rehearsal time went on the Tchaikovsky.

· The Cheltenham festival runs until July 17. Box office: 01242 227979.