"IF you're going to play modern music, you should play modern music that's nice."

From the moment early on when tuba player/presenter David Gordon Shute spoke these words, Onyx Brass had the large audience at the Courtyard eating out of their hand.

Some of the modern music they played was nicer than others. We were told that the French style of brass playing favoured brilliance over warmth and Bozza's Sonatine, written as a Paris Conservatoire test piece, was a fairly empty business beneath its relentless virtuosity, dispatched here with accuracy and bravado.

By contrast Malcolm Arnold's Quintet has a lot to say, some of it quite profound. Obviously these players, who have been together now for seven years, know the piece well, and their tuning and ensemble were faultless.

For me, this was the highlight of the concert, together with their final foray into popular music with arrangements of On the street where you live and The man I love.

These five are all very fine players. My only reservations concern repertoire and programming. The first half contained too many short pieces and perhaps the temptation to fill the concert out with talk shouldn't be indulged too far, even though some of it was entertaining.

Also pauses between movements could be tightened - where considerations of plumbing allow. And might the occasional piece for three or four instruments help both players and audience?

Still, it was a very enjoyable evening and the enthusiastic reception thoroughly deserved.

Roger Nichols