{TABLE} Dumky Trio .......................... Dvorak Marche Oobliee ...................... Raymond Deane Piano Trio in E flat D929 ........... Schubert {/TABLE} CORK was quick off the mark in combining this year's commemorations of Schubert (the bicentenary of, his birth) and Brahms (the centenary of his death).

Just eight days into the new year the Crawford Piano Trio launched a Schubert cum Brahms series at the gallery from which the ensemble takes its name.

The Schubert Ensemble, currently travelling the country under the banner of the Music Network, followed not far behind, though for their ongoing tour this London based group has chosen to present the two composers in separate programmes.

The common feature to all their concerts is a specially commissioned piano trio from Raymond Deane, Marche Oubliee, which was premiered in Monaghan on Saturday, and which I caught up with at its third performance, at the Coach House in Dublin Castle, last night.

The new work is the final panel of a "macabre triptych" (following Seachanges (with Danse Macabre) and Catacombs) and opens with a murky motif low on the piano, repeated with late Lisztian obsessiveness.

This is soon intruded upon by the stringed instruments and explosively stretched before the introduction of a second obsessive pattern of ricocheting, repeated chords.

This opening section and the closing upward fade work better than the climactic reliance on tremolo, a feature which can be as tiresome in Deane as in Liszt.

The Schubert Ensemble also provided a pleasingly plain account of Dvorak's evergreen Dumky Trio, enlivened by the strong playing of the cellist, Jane Salmon.

In the dry acoustic of the Coach House, however, Schubert's E flat Trio was rather lacking in light and shade, always a risk in a work with such a problematically extended finale.