Eine kleine Nachtmusik - Mozart

Cello Concerto No 3 in G - Boccherini

Strings A-Stray - Elaine Agnew

Nocturne Op 19 No 4 for cello and strings - Tchaikovsky

Serenado in E, Op 22 - Dvorak

It would be nice to report that the Irish Chamber Orchestra under Fionnuala Hunt had succeeded in removing the patina of familiarity from Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, but the performance, though sprightly enough, showed that the patina has become inseparable from its base.

The second item in Sunday's programme at IMMA, Boccherini's Cello Concerto No 3, being far less familiar, came across with welcome vividness. The textures are such that the solo part can be clearly heard at every moment, and the soloist is very exposed, but Roeland Duijne was like a duck in water, swift and confident. In the cadenzas (composed by Maurice Gendron, one of Duijne's teachers) it was as if he had been challenged by the orchestra to do better than they and he had won.

Boccherini, himself a virtuoso cellist, had of course written a part designed to demonstrate the brilliance of the soloist.

Both the Nachtmusik and the Concerto have an air of being expanded string quartets; Elaine Agnew's Strings A-Stray (commissioned by ICO in 1994) makes use of the full power and sonority of the string orchestra.

Performed in its 1998 revision, it plays with all sorts of rhythms between the regular and the indeterminate with some violent harmonies to give added edge. Despite the jokey title, the composer is evidently firmly in charge and a skilful orchestrator.

A lot of Dvorak's music makes me feel that I have been submerged in golden syrup (as does Tchaikovsky's Nocturne for cello and strings) but the Serenade Op 22 was spiritedly presented and made a fitting conclusion to an afternoon of works closer to salon than to chamber music, in the sense of being ready to welcome the listener and not warning him off.