Hugh Tinney (piano), Hibernia String Trio

{TABLE} Piano Quartet in G minor K478....................Mozart Three Pieces D946................................Schubert Piano Quartet....................................Schumann {/TABLE} THE AIB Music Festival in Great Irish Houses has featured two novel chamber music line-ups, both of which have yielded piano quartets. At the opening concert last week, the Dublin Piano Trio was joined by the distinguished Italian viola player, Bruno Giuranna. And at the National Gallery last night, pianist Hugh Tinney appeared for the first time with the Hibernia String Trio.

Mozart's first piano quartet is among the earliest works of its kind, and, in a key associated with some of his most passionate writing, constitutes an extraordinary defining peak of the genre. Tinney and the Hibernia's account was in the outer movements tightly-wound and sparky, the piano forwardly balanced, the gentler mood of the central Andante highlighted by its surroundings.

The Schumann quartet was delivered with strong thrust and bustling energy, and the intonation of the Hibernia's violinist, Brana Cahill, which gave some cause for concern in the Mozart, seemed here to have settled.

Before the interval, Hugh Tinney played the three late Schubert piano pieces of D946. His delivery here was masterly - the dancing play between major and minor in the first, the songfulness of the second and the quizzicality of the third, all expressed with "equal ease.