THIS GIG had the music talents required in Paul McGrattan, Paul Roche, Peter Molloy and Desi Wilkinson (flutes), and Mary Bergin (whistle), but never quite got going, despite dazzling playing from, for instance, Bergin and Wilkinson.

The whistle player was in the driving, full-bodied form for which she has been renowned since her first album a bubbling cascade of engaging and enervating graced melody, a sparkling Ballygowan of sound, so to speak.

Wilkinson, as always, pulled the divil by the tail, with no cosy choices, no safety net of well-trodden ground. He led with the extrovert explosion of two Charlie O'Neill highlands, pushing the instrument to its topmost limit in perfect tune. His "call and response" reversal of pitch was a marvel, getting the utmost from such a basic tool on a deceptively simple melody. McGrattan's beautiful working of a fast hornpipe and reel set, too, only emphasised that, with a little thought, we could have had a productive interplay of such contrasting timbres, paces and styles, a duet here, a trio there, maybe. Instead, the use of the McKenna's Reels in the all-together finale welded all the players to that mentor's short sharp bursts.

This induced a yearning in the listener for just a bit of Roscommon partbridging, of florid letting go, that was only partly sated by the terrific concluding Tarbolton set.