The 17th-century monarch Queen Christina of Sweden was known as "the Pallas of the north", though she was, by all accounts, quite a sight. The French ambassador described her as "very like a man", with flourishing beard to match. Most importantly, she had a superb taste in music.

In keeping with this year's festival theme of great patronesses, Emma Kirkby and the instrumentalists of London Baroque presented compositions from the Christine court. It was a mixed bag: Christina's benevolence touched everyone from English journeymen John Jenkins and Christopher Simpson to Italian superstars Scarlatti and Corelli. Even Handel dropped by to contribute a cantata, the seductively dreamy Notte placida e cheta, which Kirkby delivered with just the right air of narcotic sensuality.

The previous evening the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists produced tub-thumping Odes to St Cecilia in magisterial York Minster. In the last decades of the 17th century, the Cecilian Ode occupied a similar position to U2 tours today, with each one expected to be more mind-bogglingly spectacular than the last. Peter Seymour's well-drilled ensemble traced the development from Purcell's restrained Te Deum and Jubilate to the thrillingly bombastic Hail! Bright Cecilia, scored for full baroque orchestra with practically everything but the baroque kitchen sink.

At the opposite end of the scale, Catherine Bott lulled a late-night crowd with some intimate lute songs from Queen Isabella's Spain, lamenting the broken spirit of convivencia, or peaceable coexistence between Catholics and Muslims. In a moving aside, Bott suggested that in the present climate, a re-awakening of convivencia could be our only hope.

· Festival ends tomorrow. Box office: 01904 658338.