Entanglements (1087-91) - Roderik de Man

Thymehaze (1979) - John Casken

Sappho's Tears (1990) - Calliope Tsoupaki

Settings of Stein (1994-95) - Jane O'Leary

Ausser Atem (1994) - Moritz Eggert

The sweet-toned recorder seems an unsuitable instrument for interpreting contemporary music, but the composers represented in last Sunday's recital in the Hugh Lane Gallery for the most part avoided the use of avant-garde techniques and respected the unemphatic nature of the eight-holed pipe.

Indeed Jane O'Leary's Settings of Stein luxuriated in mellifluous figurations indefatigably repeated as is only fitting for a work inspired by Gertrude Stein's obsessive repetitiveness. The brilliant recorder-playing of Jorge Isaac, the solo dance of Elizabeth Clarke (choreographed by Iain Montague) and the drumming of Richard O'Donnell, gave the piece a variety which almost disguised its excessive length.

Sappho's Tears, for tenor recorder, violin, female voice and small bell, gave one the impression of intruding on an ancient ritual. Violin and recorder blended perfectly and above them the voice intoned, as if in a pre-Gregorian chant, mysterious vocables whose import might have been religious, to judge by the irregular puncuations of the bell. Very slow, with a deliberately medieval atmosphere, it was worlds away from the disjointed sections of Casken's Thymehaze. This piece, for alto recorder and piano, was so improvisatory in its effect that the players might well have discarded their scores and invented on their own, without any loss to the piece.

Eggert's wittily titled Ausser Atem (out of breath) involved the playing of two recorders simultaneously, which required virtuosity; it was more rewarding musically than de Man's Entanglements, where solo recorder was accompanied by more recorders on tape.