Maya Homburger (baroque violin), Malcolm Proud (harpsichord) and Helen Gongh (cello) are experts in the field of early music but one of the great attractions of their concert in IMMA on Sunday was the inclusion of works by Gyorgi Ligeti and Barry Guy, both in the forefront of experimental music. The quality of the performances made nonsense of the barriers that are too often erected between different periods of music. Guy's Celebration for solo violin and his Bubblets for violin and harpsichord looked back as well as forward; and Ligeti's Passacaglia ungherese and Frescobaldi's Cento Partite sopra Passacagli, both for solo harpsichord, shook hands across the centuries. The latter work, though the earlier, was even more inventive, and Malcolm Proud revelled in its generous inspiration.

The Trio Virtuoso played three works, sonatas by Fritz, Tartini and Biber. The Sonata by Gaspard Fritz (1716-1783) seemed to be written in a formula and did not get the best from the players, but Tartini's The Devil's Trill Sonata doesn't need its alleged connection with the devil: its merits are plain and the trill, in the hands of Maya Homburger, is performed without infernal aid. Biber's pictorialism, as displayed in Mystery Sonato No 10, Crucifixion, has a definite appeal, and the players brought out all its colour which grew out of the cello's singing line, like a cantus firmus in the bottom of the texture, nobly played by Helen Gough.