Boston Classical Review

The Boston Artists Ensemble performed two early String Trios by Beethoven Sunday in Brookline. Painting by  Carl Traugott Riedel, c. 1800.

There is a common misconception about the music Ludwig van Beethoven wrote during the so-called “early period” of his career in the 1790s. To wit that, because he spent those years studying with Franz Josef Haydn, Antonio Salieri, and Johann Albrechtsberger, there is a corresponding apprentice-like quality to his output.

While it’s true that Beethoven’s first sonatas and quartets owe clear formal, rhetorical, and stylistic debts to Haydn and, especially, Mozart, there’s nothing inexperienced about them. The Boston Artists Ensemble’s presentation of two of his early compositions on Sunday afternoon at Brookline’s St. Paul’s Church underscored the point.

Both of the concert’s offerings, the String Trios in E-flat major (Op. 3) and G major (Op. 9, no. 1), showcased a composer who had already thoroughly integrated the prevailing Classical expectations for the genre. At the same time, he was clearly ready, willing, and happy to push the envelope when and where he could.

The E-flat major installment takes as its model Mozart’s glorious Divertimento, K. 563 in the same key. If it doesn’t quite exceed its predecessor for charm or elegance, Beethoven’s effort is unfailingly amiable.

Sunday’s reading from violinist Daniel Chong, violist Jessica Bodner, and cellist Yeesun Kim was lively and warm, especially in the opening Allegro con brio. There, the music’s bold dynamic contrasts and dancing syncopations came out vigorously. The finale’s energetic runs and bustling counterpoint also drove with decided purpose.

At the same time, other spots might have benefited from a stronger sense of characterization. The first minuet’s off-balance rhythms felt tentative and unsettled; accordingly, the ensemble wasn’t able to fully mine that section’s humor. Brief moments of spotty intonation—retuning between movements might have helped—dogged the Andante and Adagio.

Nevertheless, the afternoon’s interpretation, with its buttery tone and slightly muted sonority, captured much of the latter movement’s aura of expansive serenity. The second minuet, too, with its light-footed turns and whimsically diabolical Trio, danced agreeably.

Just a couple of years separate the G-major Trio from Op. 3, yet the later score feels far tighter and better focused (a perception no doubt enhanced by Beethoven sticking with a four-, as opposed to seven-, movement structure in it). Sunday’s well-directed account reflected the strengths of its overarching musical argument.

Chong, Bodner, and Kim ably mined the opening movement’s play of tension and release with rich tone and pert attention to the music’s wide dynamic range. Throughout, the scoring’s conversational aspect emerged potently: though in terms of balancing its independent parts this Trio doesn’t end up where Beethoven’s late quartets do, it certainly suggests what is to come.

The luminous Adagio, with its expansive harmonic palette and searching expressive cast, does much the same. Sunday afternoon’s performance highlighted its subtly shifting shades of color particularly well, with Chong’s fluently executed sextuplet runs leading the way.

In the Scherzo, the collective navigated Beethoven’s breezy writing with a good amount of style and imbued the movement’s Trio with rustic panache. The finale, with its rollicking syncopations and bravura passagework, sparkled.

The program will be repeated 8 p.m. Friday at Hamilton Hall in Salem. bostonartistsensemble.org

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