By Susanna Jones

Turning out for a programme of 'summer music' in the pouring rain, encumbered with mac and brolly is a very British but nonetheless depressing prelude to a concert in July.

So it was a rather damp audience that settled into The Courtyard on Sunday afternoon, hoping to be diverted from the unseasonal weather for a couple of hours by the wind quintet members of the Sheffield-based group, Ensemble 360.

They began their programme unconventionally - in total darkness, with a horn solo - the mournful, haunting prologue to Britten's Serenade for tenor horn and strings, and the rest of the programme was interspersed with solo items for each instrument, putting the spotlight on the virtuosity of each member of the group.

Next came Reicha's attractive Quintet in B Flat, one of many he wrote, apparently to fill a gap in the wind music repertoire, ignoring, possibly mischievously, the fact that his associate and contemporary Beethoven had also been busy in that area.

Thereafter we were firmly in the 20th century, apart from Debussy's Syrinx (beautifully played by the group's flautist). Barber's Summer Music, composed in 1956, was inspired by a red-hot American wind quintet of the time, whose horn player encouraged him to make the piece as technically demanding as possible. However, the suave ensemble playing of this quintet made this lazy but unsettled music sound effortless as it drifted from listless legato to spiky staccato and back again.

By contrast, Ligeti's Six Bagatelles bristle with exciting Hungarian rhythms and unusual sound effects, exploiting the strange beauty of the muted horn and pianissimo discords between instruments, set against rapid toccata-like sections. This performance was full of wit and energy.

After Penderecki's austere and moving prelude for solo clarinet, the quintet played the film and TV composer Jim Parker's jazz-inspired Mississippi Five as a relaxed finale. Musical humour was very much in evidence here and the final movement, Les Animaux, in which the five instruments impersonate a whole ranch-yard of animals apparently engaged in a swaggering jazz dance, was hilarious.

An appreciative audience responded warmly to this thoroughly enjoyable concert.