No fanfares seem to have heralded composer Nick Sackman's 60th birthday this year. Since joining the University of Nottingham music faculty, he has been more busy nurturing younger talent than with blatant self-promotion.

But together with pianist Alexei Grynyuk, the Classical BRIT award winner Ruth Palmer made Saturday's premiere of Sackman's Violin Sonata a cause for celebration.

Palmer has already launched works by Richard Rodney Bennett and John Tavener. Sackman's sonata was written especially for her, and it continues his penchant for handling classical relationships in stimulating new ways.

Energetic outer movements were separated by a slower section in which artful violin pizzicati answered chunky piano chords. After the hothouse vapours of much that passes for modernism, this music came as a breath of fresh air.

Playing a beautiful Stradivari, Palmer opened with a solo violin piece to rival Bach's Chaconne in D minor: the prelude to his Suite No. 3. The poetry of the following dances brought contrasting delights – the joy being reflected in the violinist's face.

During his early career, Grynyuk was described as being too noisy. But few chamber musicians have shown greater command of the Lakeside piano.

In the Adagio of Beethoven's Sonata in G, opus 96, Grynyuk supported the gorgeous fiddle tune with a fine animation. Brahms' last sonata for violin and piano, conceived on a summer holiday by Lake Thun, fathomed the soul of German romanticism. Palmer's resplendent encore was a Bach sarabande.

Peter Palmer