What’s in a Name?

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. Chausson’s Trio in G minor, written when the 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 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.

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

The ensemble’s tour management opted for an English name to provide a “clearer identity” for the group’s first U.S. tour. The Da Camera Society, which presents the West Hollywood concert, kept the name that appears on the group’s Harmonia Mundi recordings. The Irvine date was sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.

* Les Musiciens will play music by Schubert, Ravel and Tchaikovsky at 8 p.m. Tuesday 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.