Trio’s Name Doesn’t Matter; Work Resonates With Passion

A trio is a trio is a trio, as what’s-her-name said.

At any rate, violinist Regis Pasquier, cellist Roland Pidoux and pianist Jean-Claude Pennetier appeared Thursday in Irvine as the Paris Piano Trio. Tuesday, they will play in Los Angeles under their more familiar moniker, Les Musiciens.

No matter. Their playing at the Irvine Barclay Theatre was superb.

The trio offered three deeply passionate works and played them passionately. The composers, incidentally, were French.

In their hands, Saint-Saens’ Trio No. 1 overflowed with youthful optimism, while Chausson’s Trio in G minor, written when the tragically short-lived composer was 26 (he died at 44 in a bicycling accident), reflected the conflicted struggles of a complex personality.

In a world of its own was Ravel’s Trio in A minor, written in a frenzy before he rushed off to enlist in World War I.

Knowing this, many people remark on the work’s apparently paradoxical coolness and objectivity. They should hear these people play it. They made it a testament to war’s devastation.

Pennetier sometimes overwhelmed his colleagues, but not usually. Pasquier and Pidoux often seemed to be one musical mind in two bodies.

For the record, the ensemble’s tour management opted for an English name to provide the group with a “clearer identity” on this, its first U.S. tour.

The Da Camera Society decided to stick with the name that appears on the group’s Harmonia Mundi recordings. The Irvine date was jointly sponsored of the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.

* Les Musiciens will play music by Schubert, Ravel and Tchaikovsky on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in the Grand Salon, Wyndham Bel Age Hotel, 1020 N. San Vicente, West Hollywood, as part of the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series. $25-$29. (310) 954-4300.