After many decades, Bath's final Bach festival was in 2010, but it's been reborn as the BachFest under the artistic direction of Amelia Freedman, whose November MozartFest goes from strength to strength. At present, the BachFest only amounts to a weekend, but success is assured judging from this opening concert by the Academy of Ancient Music with violinist Alina Ibragimova.

Making her debut as soloist/director with the AAM, Ibragimova's serene demeanour as always belied her cast-iron technique and her unerring ability to bring a freshness and spontaneity to the music. Comparing Bach's concertos with those of Vivaldi and offering Heinrich Biber as their starting point made for a revelatory sequence. Ibragimova began with Biber's solo G minor Passacaglia from his Rosary Sonatas, each note of the simple theme given an innocent intensity, with tension gradually built while pointing up the ever-more elaborate filigree patterning of the variations. Bach's E major Sonata, BWV 1016, with harpsichordist Alistair Ross, then served to further attune the ear to a denser texture and burgeoning technical complexities, so that the A minor Concerto, BWV 1041, could emerge in shimmering new light. The mercurial flow that Ibragimova brought to the phrasing, together with the translucent beauty of her tone-colours, made for a riveting experience and the purity of the Adagio in the E major concerto, BWV 1042, was simply sublime.

Yet it was the fiery passion of Ibragimova's Vivaldi that captured the imagination most vividly: first in the Concerto in D minor RV 234, L'Inquietudine, and then with Rodolfo Richter and Joseph Crouch in the Concerto for two violins and cello, RV 565, all breathtaking stuff. Not everything was ethereal: Biber's Battaglia spelled down-to-earth humour, and the AAM revelled in the contrast.