THE Minster Minstrels are a versatile group. Each member can play a variety of instruments and between them they can put all sorts of different combinations on the concert floor.

But these young people from York do treat their music with extreme reverence. The minstrels of the Middle Ages were lively and anything but reverent.

The Minster Minstrels' performance was very correct and subdued, almost as if they were afraid someone would frown on the idea of young people playing early music.

This is a new consort still deciding on its identity, so the concert was very much a case of "interim report on work in progress".

There were flashes of what could be: the Breton folk melody by Anonymous went with a swing, as did the courant de tambour by Praetorius and Sellenger's Round as arranged by Hannah Plowman, a violin and recorder consort member.

Jo Wherry, on violin and treble viol, played an excellent descant solo, and Jonathan Burr, who is able to produce music on the difficult mediaeval cornett, also has a pleasant singing voice.

But a lot of the time, the audience was treated to piece after piece with few dynamics and not much variation in the combination of instruments used.

So many pieces were for woodwind and strings. Why not have a mixture of woodwind only and strings only to give variety?

Above all, could the musicians let their joie de vivre show through?

They clearly enjoy playing early music, and once they forget their reverence, they should treat us to a toe-tapping performance.

Updated: 09:48 Monday, July 12, 2004