Tchaikovsky Piano Trio: Consistent and Lively

IRVINE — There are music groups that are outsized in emotional expression, and there are groups that are more reticent. The old dichotomy of Dionysian and Apollonian can apply. Count the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio, which played Monday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, among the Apollonians.

But like most dichotomies, this one blurs the truth. It’s a virtue to present a composer’s score clearly, directly and honestly--rather than perhaps expropriating it and distorting the composer’s intentions and emotions.

No, these musicians did not give the music of Smetana, Rachmaninoff and Schubert the utmost degree of warmth, sweetness and individual interpretation. Certain stylistic signature elements could have been enhanced. But they never falsified the music or distracted attention from it, either, which is no mean achievement.

With their shared background of study at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow (the trio was formed in 1975), pianist Konstantin Bogino, violinist Alexander Brussilovsky and cellist Anatole Liebermann offered a similar approach to technical and interpretive issues.

They knew how to balance parts (not always easy when strings play with piano); they knew how to pass melodic lines without breaking or interrupting them; they knew when to step forward and when to step back. Their attacks, phrasings, dynamics were consistent and, best of all, lively.

*

All this came together best in a powerful performance of Smetana’s Trio in G minor, one of those works so vivid in emotional portrayal that it doesn’t need any additional overlay. Nor did the musicians try to give it any.

Smetana wrote it to deal with the death of his second daughter, at the age of 4. Crisis, loss, mad grief and efforts to retain memory of happier days and the girl’s innocence fill the work.

It is amazing to hear how classical structures can accommodate such emotions, honoring them and, to a degree, resolving them. There are no fantasy or wish-fulfillment finales, but there are continuous affirmations, mostly through recurring quotations of one of the daughter’s favorite songs.

*

Both the clarity of structure and the expressive purpose of the music became perfectly clear in the trio’s playing.

The program, sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, opened with a strong performance of Rachmaninoff’s Trio No. 1, “Elegiaque.” Here too the musicians’ matching of color, dynamic and phrasing was arresting.

It’s been a busy seven days for the three. There was a program last week at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, at which their performance of Schubert’s Trio No. 2, also on this program, was reviewed. Friday, they stepped in for the Francesco Trio at Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, after that group’s pianist got sick. Violinist Brussilovsky played in recital with pianist Leonid Levitsky on Tuesday at the Irvine theater.

For their single encore on Monday, they played Fritz Kreisler’s saucy “Marche Miniature Viennoise” (Little Viennese March).