Low key recital

{TABLE} Sonata in A Op 100 ......... Brahms Violin Sonata .............. Ravel Violin Sonata .............. Elgar Tzigane .................... Ravel {/TABLE} THE second concert in the INCH The Irish Times Celebrity Series was given on Saturday by the British violin and piano duo of Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe.

Ms Little is a player whose work have enjoyed on previous encounters as that of a clear sighted musical messenger. In the first half of Saturday's programme, however, in the works by Brahms and Ravel, the sonata playing sounded decidedly undercharged.

In part, at least, this effect was due to the nature of the support she received from her pianist. With the piano lid on the short stick, he seemed to take his role to be that of an accommodating accompanist, and, particularly in the Brahms, the unassertive lightness of his touch made for a performance of unusual blandness.

Happily, after the interval, the sense of disengagement was thoroughly dispelled in a committed reading of Elgar's Sonata in E minor, "bold and vigorous", as the composer wrote of the opening movement, but successful, too, in moments of inward reflection.

Tasmin Little is hardly the most flamboyant of violinists, not the sort of player to dazzle with flashes of unwonted virtuosity in a showpiece like Ravel's Tzieane. She responded well to the gutsiness of the writing, but at the end of the evening it was still the Elgar which stood out as the high point of an oddly low key programme.