Ra! - David Dzubay

Son et lumiere - Steven Stucky

The Chairman Dances - John Adams

Magabunda - Joseph Schwantner

American composers se em able, without a blush, to base their work on antecedents. I doubt any European could replicate the eclectic vigour of the music on offer at the National Concert Hall last Tuesday evening, when the National Symphony Orchestra played four American works written within the last 16 years.

The most recent piece was Ra! (1995), the first movement of sun moon stars rain by David Dzubay (b. 1964). Its combination of primitivistic rhythms and defined orchestral material is effective in the declared intention of depicting an imagined sun ritual.

Son et lumiere (1988), by Steven Stucky (b. 1949) is not concerned with pictorial imagery, but with a highly coloured play of textures. These pieces are utterly different from one another, but incessant in referring to other music, as varied as Stravinsky, jazz and folk styles.

However, everything is done with such certainty, and such technical panache, that the composers seem to make derivation a virtue.

In that respect the concert's pinnacle was Magabunda (1983) by Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943).