The last of the Cheltenham festival's 72 concerts was conceived as a light-hearted finale. But, lest levity seem excessive, two jolly halves framed a third: the semi-staging of Holst's chamber opera Savitri, based on the Sanskrit tale of an encounter with death. Its outcome may have been positive, and Jean Rigby's singing of the title role wholly admirable, but the solemn tone dissipated the early feel-good factor, which was hard to regain.

Roderick Williams's performance as Death, who is persuaded by Savitri to spare her husband's life, was most impressive. His clear diction helped to overcome Holst's sometimes awkward libretto and was a match for the magnificent richness of Rigby's mezzo. Tenor Daniel Norman was Savitri's husband, Satyavan. The opera's chief interest - the lingering influence of Wagner and the mix of austere English folk-song character with Hindu inflections - was subtly underlined by conductor Paul Watkins. Holst was born in Cheltenham (there is a museum at his birthplace near Pittville Park), but honouring that association with this rarely performed work might have been more usefully done in another context.

Composer Phillip Neil Martin also combined disparate sources in his piece for bassoon and piano, Old Night, given its premiere here by Robin O'Neill and Ian Brown. It took its title from Milton's Paradise Lost, but based the five-movement structure on a traditional Japanese court melody. This was fluent writing, with the balance of instruments judiciously handled and the ear neatly deceived when both players produced ghostly whistling.

However, hearing these two works alongside Jean Françaix's bubbly Sérénade, Martinu's witty La Revue de Cuisine, Beethoven's Wind Quintet and Constant Lambert's Mr Bear Squash-you-all-flat, narrated by artistic director Martyn Brabbins, was a curious experience to say the least.