The playing of the Romanian ensemble Archaeus is bold and brilliant; sharp attack is united with rich sonority. In their recital on Sunday they played three Romanian works and three Irish ones.

Palindrom 7, by Calin Ioachimescu, was "composed within a cage of laws in which he should feel as free as possible". The freedom was perceptible; it was difficult to detect the cage. The ensemble - cello, keyboards, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, percussion and violin - was tightly organised, with a very important part for percussion, and the performance was full of excitement. History 11, Op 75 by Dancenu, the conductor of the ensemble, was a sort of summary of the history of music from the simplest forms to more complicated schemes of recent date held together by a strenuous percussion part. It all sounded very much part of 10th-century music.

Synchrony 1 by Stefan Niculescu (b. 1927) had sections where the players, supplemented by four members of Concorde, were allowed a certain freedom, so at times it sounded like a dawn chorus of instruments before the conductor drew all the strands together.

The Irish works sounded a little tame by comparison. Jane O'Leary's A Silver Thread (for violin and percussion) had a long, flowing, melodic line for the violin and a boisterous part for percussion, as if it belonged to two worlds not at ease with each other. Eunan McCreesh's The Hungry Voice for violin and cello had that passionate approach one associates with the quartets of Janacek. John Mc Lachlan's Concords, in its mood and structure "reflects the pressures of the Leaving Cert". The piece was originally written for five young brass players: on cello, violin, clarinet and piano it was less tense than expected.