Refrains and Choruses (1957) - Harrison Birtwhistle

Five Epigrams for Flute and Oboe (1980) - John Buckley

Adieu (1966) - Karlheinz Stockhausen

like glass in a mirror on a windowpane (2000) - Jennifer Walshe

The space between traditional forms and free-for-all is a wide one and composers of today like to move at ease in this space, sometimes veering from one extreme to the other. Birtwhistle's Refrains have great freedom but, for all that, sound highly organised; in Walshe's like glass . . ., the organisation is disguised by a lot of playfulness.

This play involves marbles dropped on the floor, snapping twigs, tearing paper, dripping water, rattling instrumental keys, heavy breathing and long rests to hear the air-conditioning and other extraneous sounds. A wet finger on the rim of a wine-glass makes a more appealing sound than some of those demanded of the instruments; the musical glass belongs to the music in a way none of the other sounds do.

The psst wind quintet obviously relishes the adventurous nature of the performance and the instrumental colours brought into play. Stockhausen's Adieu is like a street with many corners; if one has not been down the street before, turning a corner is always a surprise.

Buckley's Five Epigrams, which limits itself to flute and oboe, makes use of some unusual sound effects, but is more an exercise in construction than in colour; the pleasure it gives is more intellectual than sensual.

In these recitals at the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Association of Irish Composers has shown that Irish insularity is a thing of the past; the composers are fully au fait with contemporary trends.