Quintet No 2 in E flat - Reicha

Bagatelles - Gyorgy Ligeti

Trois pieces breves - Ibert

Wind Quintet - John Buckley

Three Sea Shanties - Malcolm Arnold Sextet

Last week's recital in the John Field Room by the young members of the Esposito Wind Quintet was infused by a palpable enthusiasm for the pleasures of playing music in a small group.

Reicha's Quintet No. 2 is obviously fun to play, but it requires a lot of polish if it is to be as much fun to listen to. It needs not only gaiety of spirit but a close attention to detail, and it was not until Ligeti's Six Bagatelles that the players succeeded in linking vivacity and precision. The difficulty of the music was overcome with such light-hearted insouciance that Ibert's gamin pleasantries seemed positively pallid in comparison.

John Buckley's Wind Quintet abounds in recherche sonorities such as the shakuhachitype solo for the flute at the beginning, the deep tones of the cor anglais which give added solemnity to the second movement and the strange little bassoon solo that ends the work. The players were alert to every nuance of style and feeling demanded by the composer.

Arnold's jolly Three Sea Shanties were played with the requisite cheekiness, just this side of vulgarity, and were warmly applauded.

Pianist Finghin Collins joined the group for Poulenc's Sextet, a work which balances delicately between the popular and the refined, and here a greater lightness of touch would have helped to keep the work from leaning too much towards the grandiose - it should have been as entertaining as the Ibert, though shot through by Poulenc's individual brand of melancholy.