The works of the deliciously obscure American composer George Antheil are like the novels of Sir Walter Scott - influential, shall we say, rather than generally loved. And given the instrumentation of his Ballet Mécanique, it's not hard to see why practical considerations militate against the public airing of even this, his best-known work. The Ensemble Modern reconstructed the 1925 version of the piece using two player pianos, six grand pianos, three xylophones, tam tams, plus mere recordings, alas, of the original sirens, bells and plane propellers.

It's an astonishing piece, unremittingly rhythmic and repetitive, inexorably dissonant. The player pianos were apparently being played by invisible, demonic, impossibly quick-fingered hands. The pianists and percussionists had the appearance of operatives on a factory assembly line. Peter Rundel, conducting, must be a man of steel. It was an astounding performance.

Almost as obscure a work is Les Sept Toutes Petites Danses Pour Le Piège De Méduse, by that king of self-conscious eccentricity, Erik Satie. The seven miniature dances were meant to be performed between the scenes of Satie's absurd theatre piece, Le Piège De Méduse, by a character in the play, a mechanical stuffed monkey called Jonas. The Ensemble Modern took on Satie's elegant buffoonery with admirable delicacy and wit. It was only the post-interval Stravinsky's Les Noces, perhaps programmed to take advantage of the vast selection of pianos available onstage, that was a fraction too grounded and automatically rendered to thrill, despite the gorgeous liquidity of Valdine Anderson's soprano and the enthusiasm of Omar Ebrahim's tenor.