ACO/Tognetti

A visit from the Australian Chamber Orchestra always raises questions. Does violinist Richard Tognetti, its leader for 19 years, have a slowly mouldering portrait in the attic? Can ugly players even audition? More pertinently, let's ask about what we settle for from music-making in the UK - why do so few of our ensembles present their music with this kind of ear-grabbing vigour? The ACO's formula is not unique, and Pekka Kuusisto achieves something similar with the London Chamber Orchestra or Britten Sinfonia; but still, that is an exception. For the ACO, it is the rule.

All ducking and weaving to Tognetti's lead, the 24 players brought their veneer-stripping approach to bear on Handel's Concerto Grosso Op 6 No 10 at the beginning of the programme and to Haydn at the end in a performance of the Symphony No 64, "Tempora mutantur", that was about as arresting and muscular as the composer gets. Tognetti brought a curious mix of baroque and modern sensibilities to the solo part of Bach's Violin Concerto in A, and tenor Mark Padmore joined the ensemble to continue his conductorless Bach explorations in the cantata Ich Habe Genug.

Then came Strung Out, a brilliantly compact 1988 piece for 13 strings by Roger Smalley, an Australian composer - inasmuch as Handel is British. He studied in Manchester, but emigrated in his 30s. Smalley treats the ensemble as one instrument, keeping pitches close, but creating fluid shifts in texture.

For encores, there was a version of the finale of Ravel's quartet, the delicacy of the original exchanged for teeming ensemble energy; even better, Padmore's own arrangement of Schumann's Mondnacht, his airy tenor haloed by moonlit strings.

· At Glasgow City Halls tonight. Box office: 0141-353 8000.