The Ring Cycle, University Concert Hall, Limerick, Ireland

Odd things occur in the land of Cuchulain. Thanks to economics and religious scruples, it's nearly 90 years since Wagner's Ring was last performed in Ireland in its entirety. But this week, musical history was forged. The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, under its Russian conductor Alexander Anissimov, has cheekily done the unthinkable, in a concert mara- thon over six days. It will repeat this Ring in Birmingham next week.

Rush to hear them : for this is one of the most uplifting musical events of the year. The young Irish are a model of musical maturity. There's no overegging, no youthful gaucheness. They're in command from the first welling susurrations in unfathomable double basses. It's as good as hearing the Ring afresh, for the very first time.

The NYOI delivered a stunning cast. Janice Baird's Brunnhilde, a real heldliches Kind, shears through like Nilssen (in low register, too); I caught only her in Die Walküre; happy those who hear Siegfried and Götterdämmerung too. Canadian Alan Woodrow sings Siegfried; Baird's fellow-American, Daniel Lewis Williams, makes a resonant Hunding; Robin Leggate (excellent) and the Belgian soprano Helene Bernardy (what emotional range) touch the quick as the doomed sibling lovers; Serbian-born Leandra Overmann is a cavernous Erda. The Valkyries, fired up by Colette McGahon's bracing Waltraute and Cara O'Sullivan's explosive Helmwige, take the hall by storm.

How I liked Frode Olsen : slightly too laid-back, but the most lucid of Wotans – authoritarian yet hopelessly vulnerable, stymied by wilting will and finely splicing each new Wotanish angst into Anissimov's unwearisome, wisely pitched, beautifully nursed reading. Suzanne Murphy's shrillish Fricka needs geeing up in Rheingold, but sizzles in Walküre's sit-com family row. The German Rolf Haunstein retains his vigour as a grizzled Alberich; the Polish prizewinning baritone Tomasz Konieczny's forthright Fasolt impressed hugely in upper registers; Brian Bannatyne-Scott's Fafner plays second fiddle in Rheingold, only to meet a resonant sticky end in Siegfried. Best of all is the gripping Volker Vogel (an established Mime), here singing Loge for the first time.

But oh, this young orchestra. Is it too much for them? Of course not. Go to hear the NYOI cellos alone or their double basses; Ronan O'Sullivan's sinuous bass clarinet (the Ring's real hero) and Matthew Berrill's clarinet solos; or the horn chorus (outshining the trumpets); the Magic Fire's antiphonal piccolos; or guest leader Michael D'Arcy's affectionate nursing of the violins. Go to hear them all. Go to be amazed.