Sonata in G minor, D408 - Schubert

Sonata in G, Op 30 No 3 - Beethoven

Sonata in A - Franck

Romanian Dances - Bartok/Szekely

The RDS's spring recital programme opened its family theme, billed as "FamiliaRDS", with a concert by the violinist Aisling O'Dea, now in her mid-twenties, partnered by her mother, the pianist Veronica McSwiney.

The idea of family members making music together is a cosy one, but not one which can be guaranteed to produce especially rewarding results. Some do, some don't, and there weren't any special affinities (other than in the dress sense) to be observed in the O'Dea/McSwiney duo's music-making.

Aisling O'Dea made a favourable impression on the only previous occasion I heard her in concert, in the finals of the 1994 RTE Musician of the Future Competition. At that time she was studying in London, and since 1996 she has been pursuing post-graduate studies in Berlin.

Her style of music-making is musicianly and low-key, and she has managed to retain a native, unforced lyricism which many teachers these days seem inclined to drum out of young players. However, the style is not particularly polished - there are too many faults of intonation and other blemishes for that.

McSwiney's black-and-white mannerisms of accentuation rather punctured the violinist's well-set mood in Schubert's G minor Sonata and, even in Beethoven's Op. 30 No. 3 in G, the balances were often far from finely judged.

There were limitations, too, in the demanding second movement of the Franck, where neither player seemed able to kick in the necessary supercharger boost. It was elsewhere in the Franck that O'Dea showed herself at her best, in the recitative-like third movement, where, with originality and freshness, she refreshingly bypassed a wide range of familiar cliches of rubato and mannerism. As at the 1994 RTE competition, she struck me as a player I'd like to hear more of.