Janus-faced, the PLG artists stand before their circle of critics and cheerleaders. Their two-pronged mission? Radiate absolute confidence and engagement into whatever thorny modernist collage is sitting on the music stand - while simultaneously trying to convince us that they would be just as comfortable (perhaps more so?) in the greats of the canon.

Sometimes the trick can work so well that you in the audience don't even regret being cast into the outer regions of the contemporary - not, at least, when the playing is as open and honest as the Brodowski Quartet's. Dai Fujikura's testing Another Place was nearly all sharp ends - violent contrasts, hairpin turns - but the Brodowski players played it with great warmth and affection. They managed to moisten the dusty patterns of Simon Holt's Two Movements for String Quartet. And if the more sprawling, epic nature of Schnittke's String Quartet No 3 took the quartet to the limits of their expressive range, the whole Brodowski bundle bodes extremely well for the future.

As the final concert in this year's PLG series continued, doubts started up again. Why did it take so long for Peter Sparks to alight on music that played to his lyrical as well as his technical strengths? That was Peter Wiegold's haunting Aulos, a bacchanale in which Sparks's clarinet danced wildly enough to show his virtuosity (the piece was partly improvised), but not at the expense of direct communication. Redemption, in part, for Nicola LeFanu's greying Sea Sketches and Harrison Birtwistle's hopelessly dated Linoi.

At least Sparks went out on a high. The very last thing we needed to hear from the icy poise of either the violinist Eulalie Charland or pianist Maiko Mori was a chugging, Nymanesque ramble such as Graham Fitkin's Bolt. But this was the relentless climax they had chosen to a programme too weighted towards the clinical (Judith Weir's Music for 247 Strings) and the circular (Philip Cashian's Wynter Music); only rarely did I hear these two talented players open out into the audience or really spark off each other's lead.

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