Concorde/Jane O'Leary

{TABLE} Lief (1993) ........................ Hilary Tann The Harlequin's Carnival (1995) .... Ian Wilson Mercedes Spring (1996) ............. Roger Doyle Three Eiegies (1978) ............... Gunther Balias Towards and Unknown Goal (1996) .... Tera de Marez Oyens {/TABLE} CONCEORDE'S midday recital at the Lane Gallery on Sunday presented the first performances of works by Ian Wilson, Roger Doyle and Tera de Marez Oyens.

Wilson's The Hadequin's Carnival was inspired by a picture of the same name by Joan Miro and by one of Bruno Maderna's compositions. Maderna's use of random selection, at the discretion of the performer, inspired the structure and Miro inspired the colour and lack of central focus. David James, playing solo cello, certainly kept one guessing where the music would turn next in his varied selection of fragmented melody and wisps of sound, but some repetitions helped to give the piece a shape.

Doyle's Mercedes Spring, for clarinet, cello, percussion and tape, explored that interesting area where noise become music and vice versa. As in a kaleidoscope, patterns stabilised only to break up in disorder and reform. Tape and instruments were discreetly balanced as the composer played with his ideas. If there were a pictorial inspiration, it is more likely to have been Picasso than Miro.

The late De Marez Oyens wrote the haiku like words for her Towards an Unknown Goalbut treated them so instrumentally that the soprano was an equal partner with flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano. Both this work and Bialas's Three Elegies for flute, violin and cello were intellectual in feeling and made a strong contrast with the other works on the programme, works which shared with Hilary Tann's Llef for flute and cello, an uninhibited relish for the sensuousness of sounds.