Chaconne - Purcell

It Is Midnight Dr Schweitzer - John Woolrich

Divertimento in D K136 - Mozart

Four Seasons - Vivaldi

The opening concerts of Kilkenny Arts Week were given by the Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square, a British chamber orchestra founded 30 years ago by John Lubbock and still under his direction.

Their second concert on Sunday started with Purcell, but an encounter with post All-Ireland traffic meant I did not catch any of this opening work.

It Is Midnight Dr Schweitzer by the British composer John Woolrich, who is now in his mid-forties, is an 11-movement piece inspired by the strange machines of the artist Jean Tinguely. As a way of holding together a varied and fragmented sequence of modernist gestures, the idea worked smoothly, and John Lubbock handled the music at all times with a sophisticated ear for timbre.

Mozart's early Divertimento in D, K136, never forced or pressured, melodically sweetly sung and rhythmically deftly danced, proved the high point of the evening. In Vivaldi's Four Seasons, directed from the violin by Jonathan Rees, the ensemble was not always so tight nor the solo playing always as tidy as one would have liked. Yet many of the characteristics of the style of playing of the first half were satisfyingly retained and the performance as a whole was rarely less than amiable.