Dust - Bruynel

Momentum - Peter van Onna

Kerygna - Mario Garcia Acevedo

Contradictie Iva - Robin de Raaff

La nativitΘ (exc) - Messiaen

Jackdaw - Wayne Siegel

Vespern II - Jaroslav Josef Wolff

Music needs people like Hary Sparnaay. His skills as a specialist in bass clarinet render comment superfluous. The most reluctant listener can be persuaded by his zeal for new music, by his speaking as well as his playing.

All this made last Sunday's recital at St Michael's Church, D·n Laoghaire an inspiring occasion. It was his second concert in D·n Laoghaire that weekend. He and Silvia Castillo played music for various combinations of clarinet, organ and pre-recorded tape.

The solo organ works were of the mystical, atmospheric kind, and sound a lot easier to play than they are. Castillo's control of sustained pulse was impressive in Kerygna, written in 1988 by a fellow-Argentine Mario Garcia Acevedo, and in the two movements from Messiaen's La nativitΘ which, dating from 1935, was by far the oldest music on the programme.

The concert included two premieres. Peter van Onna's Momentum sets up a neat counterpoint between the differing modes of attack and lyricism in alto clarinet and organ. Robin de Raaff's Contradictie IVa is an extraordinary display of the bass clarinet's versatility.

Present-day avoidance of orthodoxy was epitomised in this new music, in Ton Bruynel's 1992 work Dust for organ and tape, and in Wayne Siegel's Jackdaw for bass clarinet and tape - an accomplished example of 1990s gutsy minimalism. Their stylistic freedom made a fascinating contrast with the severe, concentrated modernism of Vespern II for bass clarinet and organ, written thirty years ago by the Czech composer Jaroslav Josef Wolff.

This was an utterly absorbing and persuasive concert. It must be counted among the finest hours of the long-running annual series at St Michael's Church.

Series continues at St Michael's Church, D·n Laoghaire on Sunday, July 8th at 8.30 pm, with David Leigh (organ)