Sonata No 3 For Viola Da Gamba & Harpsichord - Bach

D/C, Toccata & Feud, Sonata For Viola & Piano - Ronan Guilfoyle

For Ronan Guilfoyle, Bach is the greatest of composers - "all the elements that can exist in music . . . are perfectly proportioned in his composition".

By choosing his Sonata No 3 For Viola Da Gamba And Harpsichord to open the recital of works by Guilfoyle in the Hugh Lane Gallery on Sunday, Tanya Kalmanovitch made clear one of the connections between the past and the present of music, even if the use of modern viola and piano instead of the original instrumentation blurred the perfection of the proportions.

She and Conor Linehan, on piano, had a romantic approach that suited the central slow movement but not the outer ones.

D/C, played on viola and soprano saxophone, with Michael Buckley, was partly written out and partly improvised.

The passages that sounded improvised, if they were, were the most exciting, and Buckley took full advantage of the opportunities it offered, preserving a beautiful singing tone on an instrument that can sound brash.

Toccata & Feud, for piano solo, was notable for its rhythmic vigour and a headlong pace that made it sound improvised, although there was no improvisation in it.

The cross rhythms seemed to come naturally to Linehan.

The Sonata For Viola And Piano has three moments, each containing passages of improvisation.

Naively perhaps, I expected the players might surprise each other with some new turn of phrase, some inspired invention, but as they always had to return to the score, their freedom was limited.

Could it be that the improvisation had been planned in advance? I could detect no sign of surprise or appreciation. The final cadenza for viola wanted to create its own world but was summoned to heel by the piano.

The music as a whole sounds like classical music with jazz elements rather than the other way round.

It escapes the charge of being crossover or world music, as its roots are firmly in the European tradition.