Martin Adams reviews the Chamber Music Series at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.

Arts Festival's classical music programme offers an attractive line-up of music and performers. After the concerts last Saturday and Sunday by the Prague Chamber Orchestra and pianist Tian Ying (already reviewed in this newspaper), the remainder of the programme is dominated by the two chamber music series. There are also baroque duos and trios by Les Mousquetaires Danois, which can be heard in Kilkenny Castle's Parade Tower today.

I heard two concerts from each chamber music series. I also experienced the difficulties caused by conflicting information in the festival's main booklet and in the music booklet.

In the international chamber music series, horn player Michael Thompson is the constant presence who devised the four programmes and chose the performers, 14 in all. Enjoyment of music-making is a feature both of his genial introductions and of the performances. While the two concerts I heard rarely attained that polish achieved by performers playing together regularly, most things were sound and shapely. Given that form, tonight's concert, which includes a wind-band arrangement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, could prove a delight.

Music from the 18th and early 19th centuries dominates this series, though there is a healthy sprinkling of 20th-century works. One example was the Arioso and Scherzo for horn and strings, written in the early 1950s by Arnold Cooke, whose rugged, Hindemithian textures came across with conviction and clarity.

Another highlight was the Sextet for horn and strings by Beethoven's Bohemian contemporary, Anton Reicha. Michael Thompson's playing on the natural horn showed how versatile and expressive that instrument can be. He also explained that this was Brahms's preferred instrument for the celebrated Horn Trio.

Nevertheless, for the Brahms, he followed common practice in using the modern valve horn, perhaps because a modern piano was also being used. The Brahms received a capable performance, but it epitomised an intermittent limitation. For all the shapeliness and colour shown by pianist John Constable and violinist Sophie Langdon, two of the most experienced musicians in the festival, detail and expression were somewhat generalised. In this piece and others, Langdon occasionally pressed fast tempos when leading from the front desk.

Nevertheless, her account of the Debussy Violin Sonata was a high point, notable for subtle variations in vibrato and colour, all well-judged for their context.

By contrast, the musicians of the Vienna Mozart Trio have worked together for more than 10 years; and while they come from various backgrounds, Viennese ideals were shown in the finesse they brought to Mozart's trios in G K564 and B flat K502. His mature trios are the mainstay of the Vienna's series, which included the Piano Quartet in G minor K478 (with Marina Sorokowa) yesterday, and several 20th-century works.

Touches of flamboyance revealed the trio as a group of co-operating individuals, with violinist Leonid Sorokow as the most individualistic. The consequent tension had palpable merit in 20th-century works by Werner Lemberg and Heinz Kratochwil, and above all in Schumann's Piano Trio in F, Op 80. In the latter, full-blooded yet subtle playing sought out the most intricate aspects of this difficult, profound work.

Of the four concerts presented from Monday to Wednesday, this last one was the most accomplished and consistently impressive.

It augured well for the performance of Piano Trio No 2 by Ireland's Rhona Clarke, due to take place in the festival's final concert tomorrow night.

The Kilkenny Arts Festival ends tomorrow. For details, go to www.kilkennyarts.ie