Athenaeum Chamber Orchestra/Qui van Woerdekom

{TABLE} Variations and Fugue on a theme by Kuhnau ........ Hendrik Andriessen Romance .......................................... Finzi Serenade No 3 .................................... Volkmann Danse sacree danse profane ....................... Debussy Prelude and Fugue for strings .................... Britten Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten .............. Arvo Part Reverie et Caprice ............................... Berlioz/Bredennorsi Italian Serenade ................................. Wolf {/TABLE} THE Athenaeum Chamber Orchestra is a student string orchestra which hails from the Netherlands, where it was founded 11 years ago in the Royal Conservatory at The Hague.

It numbers 45 players aged between 12 and 20, "who combine their high school education with a musical education at the conservatory".

Under its founding conductor, Qui van Woerdekom, it gave six concerts on its debut tour of Ireland last week, reaching the Rotunda Pillar Room in Dublin on Saturday.

The group's Dublin programme was an enterprising one, including works by a number of unfamiliar 19th and 20th century composers.

The Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen (1892-1981) has suffered the unfortunate fate (outside his native land, at any rate) of being overshadowed of late by one of his successful composer sons, Louis.

Hendrik, whose output is dominated by sacred music, wrote his Kuhnau Variations, a piece that aims for and achieves a high level of internal contrast, in 1935. The Athenaeum's performance made clear why the piece has been taken up with such enthusiasm in the composer's native land.

The German, Robert Volkmann (1815-1883), was a conservative figure, although one of his works, a Piano Trio in B flat minor, won the approval of the altogether more adventurous Liszt. Volkmann's Serenade No. 3 is light and dextrous, making much use of a solo cello, and espousing a cornucopian inventiveness without actually managing to establish any strongly individual stamp.

It was good, too, to hear these young players take the strain of the dangerously demanding solo writing in Britten's Prelude and Fugue for 18 strings.

But even more rewarding were the two works with soloists. The young Dutch players established a fine textured partnership with Hague trained Irish harpist Andreja Malir in an assertively shaped performance of Debussy's two dances, and they showed themselves fully at one with the volatility of Berlioz's Romance et reverie, where the impressive 18 year old violin soloist was Carla Leurs.