THE best performance in the Irish String Trio's lunchtime concert, last Friday in the National Concert Hall's John Field Room, was of the final item. Schubert's Adagio and Rondo in F D487, for string trio and piano, gives the piano a concerto like prominence. Deborah Kelleher's, playing of this part was not always crisp and accurate, but it was shapely and well scaled, qualities which were not notable elsewhere in the concert.
For Mozart's Flute Quartet in D K.285, which also gives the non string player a concerto like prominence, the Irish String Trio - Sheila O'Grady (violin), Elizabeth Csibi (viola) and Moya O'Grady (cello) - were joined by flautist Marie Comiskey. There was nothing wrong with her tone or technique but her insistent "I am the soloist" projection, and the players' failure to discourse using the same shaping, were debilitating.
This last weakness, and the general failure to make detail count, were most damaging in Schubert's Notturno in E flat D897, for violin, cello and piano. It was hard to tell whether the differences between the strings playing of the opening theme (hesitant yet calculated) and Kelleher's subsequent playing of it (connected and fluid), resulted from lack of awareness or from miscalculation. In a piece which needs to float ethereally, the results were disruptive.
One of the better performances was of Schubert's String Trio in B flat D471, which, like the Adagio and Rondo, was written when the composer was deeply influenced by Mozart. The straight forward character of both pieces came across, despite the limitations of the performances.