Irish Times writers review Bridgewood Ensemble at Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin and The Gondoliers at the National Concert Hall.

Bridgewood Ensemble, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Raymond Deane - Écarts. John McLachlan - Radical Roots. Ian Wilson - Phosphorus

The three pieces for string trio presented by the Bridgewood Ensemble at this free concert raised old questions in a contemporary setting. These were questions about composers telling or not telling listeners what their music is about. To a certain extent, Deane and Wilson told us. John McLachlan, in his 2003 Radical Roots, did not. He outlined various formal and structural considerations but avoided divulging what the piece is about - or whether it was about anything.

Which might suggest - to answer the old question with the old classifications - that it was "pure" or "absolute" music. If so, in its long, unhurried procession of austerely dissonant chords, it seemed to lack that self-explanatory quality which a piece without extra-musical reference rather depends on to engage its audience.

It was easier to engage with the other two pieces: with Deane emotionally, with Wilson intellectually. Deane's 1986 Écarts was written, according to his briefest of notes, "at a time of separation and bereavement". As a result, the lonely feeling conjured by the opening's whispered harmonics had a context. Allusions to Beethoven's Les Adieux sonata made you feel you were on the right track.

In his 1997 Phosphorous, Ian Wilson provides an appealing extra-musical idea to chew on. The title refers to the combustible element inside the heads of matches, and the piece was inspired by Laura Esquivel's comparison of the soul to a book of matches, burning up one by one or, if you're not careful, all in one go. In turn, Wilson's theme and 10 variations - though he doesn't specifically say so - is like a book of matches, each burning differently: one emphatically, one in a clumsy dance, a few are meditative slow-burners, and so on.

And whose soul? Wilson takes the theme from his own piano piece, The Haunted Heart.

The young players - Leonie Curtin, violin; Brendan Lawless, viola; Kate Ellis, cello - had both facility and infectious appetite for these contemporary pieces in a programme spanning a wide range of atmospheres and techniques. - Michael Dungan

The Gondoliers, National Concert Hall, Dublin

Stage facilities at the NCH may have their restrictions, but it's only when no curtain comes down at the end of the Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society's current production that you remember you're not in a real theatre.

Directed by Garry Mountaine, The Gondoliers adds much spectacle to the timeless wit of its creators, Gilbert and Sullivan. John O'Donoghue's neat set is enhanced by pantomime aquatics, while Aisling Doyle's fastidiously executed choreography brings true courtly bearing to the Gavotte, and a comic routine to the Cachucha (where the gentlemen are partnered by life-size rag dolls).

Further adding to the topsy-turveydom are three songs spiced-up with in-jokes ("Unlike Posh and Becks / We accept cash and cheques").

Conductor Gearóid Grant allowed a few slackenings of the ensemble, but kept things securely on the rails when the singers' pacing occasionally became excitable. The all-singing, all- dancing and ever-energetic chorus blended their voices into a rounded and rhythmical whole.

If anything marred the musical enjoyment, it was the noticeable amplification, which put a compressed and synthetic sheen on voices that would have been audible enough without it.

The casting combines consistent artistic strengths with variegated stage personalities. There are music-hall histrionics from John Mooney as the Duke, gaudy gravities from Jackie Curran-Olohan as the Duchess, and a splendid bel canto (and dolce riso) from Sarah Guilmartin as Casilda. There's crisp diction from Adam Lawlor as the Grand Inquisitor and Robert Vickers as Luiz - respectively a model of oleaginous infamy and lusty heroism.

Special mention must be made of the four assured newcomers who play the couples Gianetta and Marco (soprano Nicola Mulligan and tenor Dean Power) and Tessa and Giuseppe (alto Naomi O'Connell and bass Gavan Ring).

Until Friday - Andrew Johnstone