Those who like the more unexpected portions of the orchestral repertoire have had rich pickings over the last few days. After the Philharmonia's British premiere of Erkki-Sven Tuur's concerto for violin and clarinet in London, it was the turn of the Orchestra of the Swan to introduce a new piece for another unlikely concerto pairing. Except that someone has already written a concerto for piano, trumpet and strings and that piece, otherwise known as Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto, is so dazzlingly brilliant, and so firmly embedded in the repertory, that few since have dared to tackle the same instrumental combination.

It's for that reason, too, John Woolrich insists, that The Street of Crocodiles, his single-movement piece, is not a concerto but simply happens to be scored for solo piano, trumpet and a small string band, as specified by his commission from the Orchestra of the Swan and its conductor David Curtis. Woolrich took the title from the English version of Bruno Schulz's autobiographical collection of short stories not because the piece has a programmatic connection with the book, but because its sectional structure reminded him of Schulz's childhood memory of "the street of crocodiles", a line of small shops each selling some kind of exotic arcana.

The scoring, with crisp string textures and piano writing that is generally spare and linear, inevitably suggests a neo-classical sound world. But Woolrich's crunchy harmonies, his deft way of playing off instrumental colours against each other, and the almost surreal way in which the vivid musical images are juxtaposed without too much in the way of transitions, give the piece real pungency. It provides a useful programme companion to the Shostakovich concerto, and as the two soloists Huw Watkins and Toby Cole showed here, something pianists and trumpeters can get their teeth into.