WESTERN ARTS TRIO AT BING

When the Western Arts Trio made its first local appearance in December, 1984, it appeared at a Monday Evening Concerts event in the Bing Theater with three other trios. Thursday evening the ensemble returned to the County Art Museum, this time on its own.

The trio has expressed enthusiasm for new music, and on that earlier occasion it played a work by the forward-looking Joseph Schwantner. This time, however, one heard contemporary music of quite a different color.

Michel Michelet, born in 1899 in Kiev, has composed largely for films, having penned two scores that were nominated for Academy Awards. His second Piano Trio, written for Western Arts in 1980, exhibits the influences of early 20th-Century French music as well as those of his teachers, Reinhold Gliere and Max Reger.

The three-movement work, a somewhat rambling and disjunct essay in sentimental romanticism, displays little sense of proportion, but the composer writes skillfully for the instruments and, within its very conservative context, the piece works.

To this and the two other works on the program, the ensemble brought sympathy, sensitivity and concentration. The three musicians--pianist Werner Rose, violinist Brian Hanly, cellist David Tomatz--each have fine individual technique and a keen awareness of the ensemble. Some surprising intonation flaws aside, the readings emerged clean and polished.

And, alas, rather bland. Constricted to a limited dynamic range and relatively inflexible tempos, neither the Michelet nor Beethoven’s Trio, Opus 70, No. 1 (“Ghost�), ever really caught fire. In the second and fourth movements of Lalo’s Trio, Opus 26, the three did display considerable brio, and in the work’s slow movement a good deal of expression. But the group took few risks Thursday night and raised few goose pimples.