A mellifluous combination

{TABLE} Clarinet Quintet Op 34 ........... Weber Quintet Opt 34 ................... James Wilson Clarinet Quintet K581 ............ Mozart {/TABLE} FOR the third concert in the Sunday afternoon series at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, John Finucane (clarinet) was joined by the RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet. This series, John Finucane and Friends at IMMA, includes some gems of chamber music represented last Sunday by Mozart's Clarinet Quintet.

That programme also included the premiere of James Wilson's Quintet Op 134. Its first movement explores a wide range of ideas which tend to be distinguished by specific, sonorities and rhythm. The second movement is much more economical, and the third is deliberately sparse. The quintet's idiomatic writing and the well shaped performance had interesting aspects, though, throughout the piece, the nature of the material implies a musical argument tighter than that which is presented.

The performances of the Weber and Mozart quintets made the most of the seductive, mellifluous sounds this combination of instruments can produce. In the Weber the result was rather over serious for a piece which needs to have its dashes of mad virtuosity. John Finucane's skill with the clarinet part seemed almost too easy.

Throughout the Mozart quintet, Finucane was at his velvet toned best, and the string players were at one with this. In the first movement the result had a seamless quality which tended to smooth out, expressive detail. Certainly, a bit more air in that movement would have helped highlights just how apt, and superb, was the spacious playing of the slow movement. It was significant that the last movement, where Mozart gives no option but to phrase strongly, raised none of these concerns.