Alan Smale (violin)/ Anthony Byrne (piano)

Violin Sonatas 13 - Brahms

The Viennese critic Hanslick said Brahms's chamber music often sounds like a sketch for a symphony. That comment, from one of the composer's ardent champions, certainly applies to two of his three violin sonatas. Yet that essential sense of tension, of bursting the boundaries of the medium, was not a feature of Monday night's recital in the National Concert Hall's John Field Room, when Alan Smale (violin) and Anthony Byrne (piano) played all three sonatas.

An intimate style of playing is not inimical to the muscular discourse of the Sonatas in G and in D minor. But if it is to work, intimacy must be accompanied by subtle differentiations of colour and rhythmic character as the music moves from thematic statement to development. As this music is almost perpetually developmental, the return of a theme needs to be an occasion.

The Sonata in A - a much more subdued piece - came across better. Nevertheless, the almost-laid-back playing was too easy on the ear for such substantial music. Ultimately it was frustrating, and in a concert priced at £10, the failure to provide a printed programme was bad form.