O.C. MUSIC : Three for the Road, Fortunately : Whenever Their Paths <i> Do </i> Cross, Soloists Find Their Trio’s a Charm

The cellist lives in Oxford, the pianist in Milan and the violinist in New Jersey.

Is this any way to run a trio?

“It’s even more complicated than that,” said David Golub, the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio’s pianist, in a phone interview from Italy; Mark Kaplan is violinist and Colin Carr is cellist. “Oxford is technically Colin’s residence, but he spends more time in Boston. I also have an apartment in New York. At least Mark is stationary in New Jersey.

“But it’s always been like that.”

It’s been like that, in fact, since the trio was formed in 1982. Tonight all three will be in Irvine to play Beethoven’s Variations on an Original Theme in E-flat, Op. 44, Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor and Brahms’ Piano Trio in B. The concert is presented jointly by the Orange County Philharmonic Society and Laguna Chamber Music Society.

The trio’s tour continues with stops Friday in Phoenix, Saturday in La Jolla and Dec. 12 in Los Angeles, a benefit performance for the Hermitage Foundation.

Golub, Kaplan and Carr play together only eight to 10 weeks a year, which accounts for the law-firm approach to naming the trio shared by contemporaries Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson and illustrious predecessors Rubinstein-Heifetz-Piatigorsky.

“If we played all year long, we would have looked for a name,” Golub said. “If it’s the main thing you do, like the Beaux Arts Trio, it makes sense. But most of the time we do our own thing. If you have three people with solo careers, it makes sense to use their names.”

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All three have appeared as soloists with the world’s major orchestras--Kaplan, for instance, with the New York Philharmonic, London Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras. Carr won first prize in the Naumburg International Cello Competition in 1981 and teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Golub has performed extensively with violinist Isaac Stern and is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Given its part-time status, the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio runs counter to the norm in at least one respect.

“If you’re not playing all year long, it’s easier to carry less repertory,” Golub said. “The temptation (for us) at first was to restrict repertory, but instead we made a concerted effort to build repertory from the beginning. At this point there are 60 piano trios in our repertory.”

The group has recorded a dozen of those. Its latest studio effort is devoted to French piano trios; a coupling of Smetana and Tchaikovsky trios is planned for spring.

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Where other chamber ensembles consider it a virtue for members to mirror one another’s playing in imitative passages in the interest of cohesiveness, the Golub-Kaplan-Carr trio has instead been lauded for playing off one another’s musical impulses.

Such spontaneity is not due to lack of rehearsal.

“A piano trio is different from a string quartet, where you need a melding of personality and the music is written with that in mind,” Golub said. “In piano trios, the only way the music works is to play off the dialogue between the piano and strings, sometimes between the strings themselves. . . . The inherent drama often pits the instruments against each other.

“There are times when there are dramatic reasons to do something the same way, but even if the analogy is the violin and cello, it’s like listening to two singers singing a duet--the words they sing and the singers’ temperaments alone make the phrase sound different.”

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Perhaps the trio’s limited time together explains why Golub can still find thrill in rehearsal.

“Practicing all together, you oftentimes have wonderful insights just through repeated playing,” Golub said. “And as much as you can ‘visualize’ the sound in your ear when playing by yourself, the actual sound comes through the personality of another player--actually hearing it can give you ideas that quicken in your imagination.

“Of course, that happens in performance, too.”

* The Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio performs works by Beethoven, Ravel and Brahms tonight at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. $14-$25. Sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society and Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society. (714) 854-4646. Hear Golub Kaplan Carr

To hear a sample of the Golub Kaplan Carr Trio performing Saint-Saens’ Piano Trio No. 1, call TimesLine at 808-8463 and press *5580.