MUSIC REVIEW : Trio Makes U.S. Debut

Though founded in 1975, the Tchaikovsky Trio, Moscow-born and Paris-based, is just getting around to making its United States debut, which took place Sunday afternoon in the Gold Ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel. As in the sports cliche, this ensemble came to play.

Seriousness of purpose would seem to be one of the group’s chief characteristics. Its mainstream program of Mozart, Smetana and Shostakovich (sponsored by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College) emerged meticulously prepared and executed and controlled in every detail, though beautifully so, as sleekness and tautness are not what these probing musicians appear to be after. There wasn’t much whimsy or spontaneity in their playing, but they made that seem like a strength.

Even what for many ensembles would be a tuneful warm-up, Mozart’s Divertimento, K. 254, became an opportunity for thoughtful, detailed music making, in a reading that found much underneath the work’s surface charm.

Individually, these musicians--Konstantin Bogino, piano, Alexandre Brussilovsky, violin, and Anatole Liebermann, cello--showed strong technique, taste and understanding throughout the afternoon. As an ensemble, they revealed pliancy and balanced sound, a comfortable give-and-take that allowed the musical discourse to flow unimpeded and therefore engrossingly. This despite Brussilovsky having joined the trio only a year ago.

In Smetana’s tragic and sweetly sentimental Trio, Opus 15, written after his daughter’s death, the ensemble uncovered the full range of emotions without overstatement. Not a maudlin or sugary note besmirched the performance.

Still, the highlight had to be Shostakovich’s Trio, Opus 67, its humor delivered dryly, its drama starkly. The measured tempo the ensemble chose for the finale made its work all the harder, but it paid off in a quietly sinister reading.