Sophisticated Lady; Solitude - Ellington/Gould

Shaker Loops - John Adams

Lullaby - Gershwin

String-music - Gould

The Irish Chamber Orchestra's concert last Sunday afternoon saw some sumptuously coloured playing in music which needs just that. In the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the American conductor Rachel Worby directed an all-American, 20th-century programme. Worby has a reputation as an advocate of music in popular styles, as well as classical. The former was represented by Gershwin's early Lullaby, originally for string quartet, and by Morton Gould's arrangements of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Lady and Solitude. Rhythmic poise and subtle variations in colour were main features of these performances, and although Gould's artified re-workings are some distance from original Ellington, both composers come across with authentic force.

Gould died in 1996, and the concert ended with one of his last compositions, Stringmusic, which was commissioned by Rostropovich and would surprise anyone who knows Gould only through his work in popular idioms. Each of the five movements has an evocative title - Tango and Dirge, for example. Yet this suite is not concerned with evocation or stylistic pastiche. It is a collection of concept-pieces, each of which uses one or two economical ideas and explores variations in rhythm, instrumental tone and scoring. It needs focussed, polished playing, and that was what it got.

John Adams's Shaker Loops is one of the best compositions by any minimalist composer. Rachel Worby declared her admiration for the ICO's playing of it - the best she had ever heard, she said - and then conducted a performance in which each slight shift of harmony and rhythm was impeccably judged, projected just enough against the predominant moto perpetuo background. Shaker Loops is not a profound work; but when played with such finely graded colour and such precision, it is a scintillating concert piece.

The ICO plays in Waterford tonight, and Limerick on Saturday. For details telephone (061) 202620.