Arensky so arresting in Emperor's hands

The Hove coffee concert goers were hugely impressed and brought them back for an encore. And they chose the song Oblivion by the 20th century Argentinian composer of 'Tango Nuevo', Astor Piazzolla, in its instrumental arrangement by Jose Bragato published in 1984.

The strings played from memory, and it struck a seductive pre-lunch mood. This was warmly embraced by an audience who had already experienced an alternative way to wake up on a Sunday morning, courtesy of Korean-born violinist So-Ock Kim, Chinese cellist Li-Wei and Japanese pianist Naomi Iwase.

If Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio in D might conventionally have been seen as the ultimate meat in the programme, and thus placed last - following the Coffee Concert interval for sherry or fruit juice with optional cake - Li-Wei, the only male in the ensemble, immediately announced that it was to come first.

The process was to issue a wake-up call, in the form of the unison opening gesture, and to provide, instead of cereal and toast, some serious intellectual reward and melodic beguilement. The effect of that was to prepare and open up the minds and hearts of the audience to the Trio in D minor by the Russian, Arensky, who is known only seriously for his orchestral arrangement of Tchaikowsky's song, Legend.

The standard programming from which the Emperor Trio so dramatically departed had been to begin with the Arensky, then play the Ravel, then the Beethoven. The switch-around created something completely different. The audience, alerted and gratified by "The Ghost", were able to assimilate the Arensky far better and more sharply. And the Ravel, so different in every respect from what had gone before, and coming after the interval, brought the feeling that we were receiving a second and quite different concert.

Had Beethoven followed Ravel, he would have come across as familiar, almost safe, tried and tested. Instead, he was precipitated into imposing relief with great freshness and an unavoidable immediacy.

From the opening bars, the Beethoven was superbly on the ball. The outer movements found the Emperor tight and together with tremendous vigour and intensity, and ready to impart a marvellous sweep. Inside the middle movement, whence derives the nickname, the sense of mystery became almost rapt as Iwase's execution of the all-pervasive trills and tremolandos appeared not to come from a keyboard at all, but some kind of supernaturally textured sound world.

Was this a benign, even benevolent ghost, or a malaevolent one? Definitely the former, if you had intended to imagine something as specific as that - althought the composer almost certainly had nothing of the kind in mind.

After this, the Arensky was an illumination, and not a pale one either in comparison to the Beethoven masterpiece.

His towering compatriot Rimsky-Korsakhov had arrogantly predicted that Arensky's heavy compositional influence from Tchaikowsky would mean he would soon be forgotten in musical history. One cannot dispute Rimsky's authority in relation to now-lost specific works but the Emperor's committed and unpretentious reading of the Trio showed why this work has defied Rimsky's attempt to cast it aside among his own generalisation. Maybe, in mitigation, he never heard it.

What we heard was a work of variety in strong feeling, texture and mood. The passion of the first movement is finally distilled in a coda of tender thanksgiving, featuring a violin melody. But that passion regenerates in the finale, where I detected the only overt traces of Tchaikowsky - a rising climactic run of notes and then a section where the piano seemed to imitate the figuration of a celeste. But it was none the worse for that, indeed extra interest was added to a movement that might seemingly have owed something more to Brahms or Schumann.

The scherzo was genuinely jocular and uninhibitedly playful, with authentic musical humour manifest in a lolloping accompaniment in the trio that suggested a cumbersome and endearing domestic animal of labour. The trio of the Saint-Saens third piano concerto scherzo seems to depict less vividly a zoological cousin of Arensky's virtually bucolic beast.

The third movement was an elegy and Arensky's achievement is to lift the music beyond solemnity and regret into a consolatory resting place of running water and glorious nature-engendered solace.

After this, the Emperor's, by now, eagerly awaited Ravel was exultantly exuberant and expansive, as well as sensitively and glowingly intimate.

So-Ock Kim and Li-Wei are already critically acclaimed international soloists. Long may they have make the time, and remain rewarded by their love of playing chamber music with Naomi Iwase. I hope they will be back to open our eyes about something else that is less familiar, another time.

The Coffee Concert Series brings its final ensemble date with the return of the world-renowned Chilingirian String Quartet on March 16 (11am). They will play Haydn's Opus 50 No 4 in F sharp minor (the same key as his "Passione" Symphony, No 49), Shostakovich's Opus 122 No 11 in F minor (astoundlingly introverted, in seven short movements, uninterrupted), and Beethoven's late Opus 127 in Eb major (which followed the Missa Solemnis and the Choral Symphony).

We can probably assume they will be played in this order. Or can we?