Gil Shaham is something of a reactionary among virtuosos of the violin. The shape of the violin recital as we have come to know it in the 20th century is something he can dispense with, as he did in his NCH/Irish Times celebrity concert on Saturday. Harking back to an earlier age, he took the weight out of the second half of his programme and crammed it with showpieces and arrangements.

The first half consisted of more conventional fare. Schubert's Sonata in A minor, D385, is a strangely elusive piece, the simplicity and directness which make it effective often failing to materialise in the heightened rhetoric of the concert platform. Gil Shaham avoided some of the dynamic extremes to which this music has been subjected, yet didn't quite manage to balance its natural lyricism and suggestions of drama.

His teamwork, with his impressive keyboard partner Akira Eguchi, was on firmer territory in Faure's A major Sonata, but it was in the miniatures and showpieces of the second half, where the telling moment counted for much more than the sense of large span, that the duo were heard at their best.

Prokofiev's Melodies, Op. 35bis, yielded willingly to the magic of this partnership, and the display-oriented pieces (Copland's Ukelele Serenade, Prihoda's arrangement of Strauss's Rosenkavalier Waltz, and a Carmen Fantasy with contributions from a number of pens) offered scope for athleticism, brilliance and charm. Shaham is, musically speaking, a fiddler with a sweet tooth and the most special moments of the evening came when he revealed his mastery of racing passages in pianissimo and his utterly distinctive way with subdued double-stopping.