It is safe to predict that Elizabeth Maconchy's centenary is not going to be one of the most fulsomely celebrated of this year's musical anniversaries. But at its best, Maconchy's music has an integrity and craftsmanship that demand respect, and perhaps more attention than it has received since her death in 1994.

The core of her achievement is her 13 string quartets, all available on disc, and two of them framed this small-scale survey presented under the auspices of the Park Lane Group, which combined a centenary tribute with a 60th-birthday celebration for Maconchy's youngest daughter, Nicola Lefanu. Both generations were represented by songs delivered by soprano Carola Darwin and accompanied by Maria Krivenksi. Lefanu's miniaturised settings of Mallarmé, Gwen John and Japanese lyrics contrasted with her mother's 1978 cycle Sun, Moon and Stars on texts by Thomas Traherne, which seemed a bit short on the visionary innocence and ecstasy that is such a precious quality of Traherne's writings.

Even the pair of string quartets failed to make the impact one hoped for in the technically competent but rather strait-laced performances by the Tippett Quartet. The Fifth was composed in 1948, and is a typical product of what was, with the exceptions of Britten and Tippett, the rather unremarkable post-war period in British music. The Tenth, from 1972, was much more impressive, and even more Bartokian, bound together into a satisfying single-movement form by organic thematic transformations and a clearly defined tonal scheme. Something much more compelling needs to come out of this centenary year, though.