Music / Trio Isimsiz, Musica Viva Australia. At Llewellyn Hall,October 3. Reviewed by MICHAEL WILSON.

There is something magic about a musical group that is so well balanced, so in sympathy with each other, that their expression of any score has an original, organic nature to it.

This is the character that the ironically named Trio Isimsiz (“trio without a name” in Turkish) brought to this program of piano trios by Brahms, Schubert and contemporary Spanish composer Francisco Coll (a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama – also where Trio Isimsiz formed in 2009).

So it’s interesting that the group spends much of its year apart, working in different cities, with different groups and on separate projects. It is obvious how much Erdem Misirlioğlu (piano), Pablo Hernán Benedi (violin) and Edvard Pogossian (cello) enjoy playing together, but this instinctive sense of each other must need to be reconfirmed when they tour.

The tightness of the trio is matter-of-fact, and the sound perfectly balanced in all conditions. No player or instrument dominated except where indicated, despite the piano being at full stick on the Llewellyn Hall stage.

Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio in C minor opened the program, with a full grand sound: no “working up to things” here! Inspired by the mountains and lakes of Switzerland during a summer holiday in 1886, the allegro was bright and then stormy, the violin demonstrative while the cello was more restrained. Misirlioğlu on piano didn’t attempt to dominate, where that may have been tempting. The presto was taken quickly, and delivered with a understated confidence.  Tempo and phrasing were guided by Benedi and Misirlioğlu, in subtle eye contact.

Harp-like piano passages in the andante brightened the mood further, with unhurried cadences leaving plenty of room to breathe.  The allegro was played with wonderful energy to a flourishing ending, which was still not over-excited.

Coll’s intriguing Piano Trio in four movements, written for Trio Isimsiz in 2020, began with hard-plucked strings over atonal piano runs with staccato punctuation. The piano took on a carillon-like tolling of dampened bells at pianissimo (and less), creating an eerie effect. Much of the string work in the first movements was very quiet – at times almost imperceptible – and then the phrasing halted jarringly before another theme took over.

Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio No.1 in B flat Major is a typical journey through sombreness and darkness into light and playfulness, perhaps mirroring Schubert’s complex moods and health struggles. The allegro was full of energy, with the cello taking over leadership of the melody line. Typical of Schubert, when the theme changed it was led by the piano “dropping a pin” in the right hand, which the players then followed with an easy ebb and flow.

The three-quarter time change in the andante depicted a steady walk rather than a dance, leading to a call-and-answer pattern with variations in the answering phrase. The scherzo was taken fast again, with modified call/response patters alternating between mezzo-forte and mezzo-piano, and then the rondo – grander and more assertive – led a procession to the drama of the 42-minute work’s conclusion.