Sonata in G K301 - Mozart

Sonata in A D574 - Schubert

Introduction and rondo capriccioso - Saint-Saens

Carmen Fantasy ... Sarasate La ronde des lutins - Bazzini

Tuesday's Bank of Ireland Arts Centre appearance by associate professor of violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Eyal Kless, was very much a recital of two halves. It wasn't just a matter of the choice of music - two sonatas of the Viennese classical period followed by a clutch of romantic showpieces - but also of the playing. If I've ever heard a less convincing approach to a Mozart sonata for piano and violin than Kless's in the usually enchanting Sonata in G, K301, I can't recall it. The tone was dry and feeble, the intonation variable, the bowing control lax. And things weren't improved by pianist Deirdre Kelleher's apparent desire to stay resolutely in the background. Schubert's Sonata in A, D574, was handled in a similarly wan way.

The technical challenges of the showpieces brought the first real signs of invigoration to the playing. Kless has viable ideas about how he'd like to shape these pieces, and a patent sympathy for the rhetoric of display. The technical resources to support his vision weren't always reliably evident on Tuesday, and he didn't manage to give the impression of being as stimulated by lyricism as by the opportunity for fireworks. But the audience clearly enjoyed hearing such demanding music being approached with virtuoso spirit.

As in the first half, Deirdre Kelleher's accompaniments were reticent and rather patchy.