Star rating: ****

Nearly 30 years on from its release on one of those old vinyl recordings - and 18 since its previous performance in Scotland - Shaun Davey's The Brendan Voyage retains its ability to transport the listener.

Indeed, written to describe in music Tim Severin's 1976 recreation of St Brendan's legendary crossing from Kerry to Newfoundland, at this remove, Davey's piece sounds extraordinarily on the money. With Liam O'Flynn's uilleann pipes playing the role of St Brendan's coracle and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera here representing the elements, it was simply beautiful.

O'Flynn's pipes by turns once again were soulful, dextrous and regal as they wrestled with orchestral storms, emerged through dense, harmonic fog and danced over the one passage that perhaps betrays the piece's vintage - a groove that might have served as effectively in the disco era as it did bearing the piper's masterful expressiveness.

If Altan with orchestra conjured up fears of Wagnerian take-overs or sugary middle-of-the-road sentiment, it needn't have. If anything, the long-running standard bearers of Irish folk group dynamics dominated the sound, with Fiachra Trench's orchestrations concentrating largely on finely-drawn supporting pastel shades.

The Bolero-like strings effect behind Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh's crystal-clear singing of her dad's Gleanntain Ghlas Ghaoth Dobhair added just the right touch and the pacing of Cathal McConnell's The Sunset from whistle and bodhran duo to full cast involvement was beautifully measured.

It might have been interesting to hear some longer tune sets, allowing group and orchestra to develop real momentum as the closing slip jig and reel found the two music forms in full-on fruitful synchronicity.