{TABLE} Sextet in B flat, Op 18................ Brahms Octet in E flat, Op 20................. Mendelssohn {/TABLE} BRAHMS'S inclination towards the grandiose is evident in this sextet, where the instruments seem to be miming a battle as they fight each other for a hearing. There is so much going on that only the most careful generalship can prevent the struggle becoming a carnage. The performance by members of the Irish Chamber Orchestra in the RHK on Sunday avoided such bloodletting, but the sense of combat was a little too obvious. Turgidity was absent, but at a price. Grateful as one is for a chance to hear the work, one could still have wished for a more relaxed interpretation.

The addition of two violins to the ensemble increased the sound level, but Mendelssohn's octet is written with much greater transparency than Brahms's sextet and is a much more genial work. It seemed to me that the players were at last letting their hair down as they revelled in the fantasy and good humour of the 16-year-old composer. His sister Fanny, after hearing the Scherzo, said to depict a witches' Sabbath, felt "half inclined to snatch up a broomstick", but that was about 170 years ago; nowadays, it is purely musical imagination that impresses, not the scene-painting.

The swirling upward motion of the fugal theme which opens the final movement evokes a broom more readily and the players all but took off in their enthusiastic counterpoint. Any slight Victorian miasma clinging to Mendelssohn's reputation was dispelled by Fionnuala Hunt and her colleagues of the ICO.