The music of the reclusive Russian, Galina Ustvolskaya (born 1919), explains the unusual line-up of instruments for the second contemporary programme, which was devised by Siobhan Cleary and presented by the Association of Irish Composers at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday.

Composition No 1 (Dona Nobis Pacem), for piccolo, tuba, and piano, is a combination of extremes taken to extremes - ear-piercing piccolo, depth-charge tuba, and clusterpacked piano writing. There's nothing quite like Ustvolskaya's hammer gestures, and Sunday's players added a certain hot-headedness to the fierce yet austere blackness of the composer's world.

The vividly-communicated programme also included two diary-like miniatures for piano by Paul Hayes; two pieces whose lighter mode was indicated in their titles (James Wilson's Arlecchino for flute, and Penderecki's Capriccio for tuba, this latter a big hit with the audience); and Das Leo- nora Notenbuch by Piers Hellawell, for solo piano, mood-swinging character studies based on an elaborate conceit about the poet Torquato Tasso.