At Jordan Hall, a recital builds toward Arensky trio

The night opened with An, who studied under Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory, performing Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli (Op. 42). His persuasive and well-rounded account neither oversold nor undersold the work’s virtuoso pyrotechnics, conveying them with both power and discipline, and at the same time bringing a thoughtful sensitivity to the more ruminative moments.

With the Steinway then wheeled toward the back of the stage, Hu and Tsang joined together for Kodaly’s Duo for violin and cello, a wonderfully distinctive, folk-inflected work from 1914 that at times breathes the air of the composer’s better-known Solo Sonata for unaccompanied cello. Saturday’s account was technically solid, energetic, and sharply drawn if at times unduly episodic in its rhetorical flow. Both players by temperament seemed inclined to favor the work’s more cosmopolitan, Ravellian strains above its rustic Hungarian roots. One had to admire their unfailing sweetness of tone, yet this reading could have also used more heat, urgency, and rhapsodic fervor.

The highlight of the night proved to be Arensky’s D-minor Piano Trio, a work that takes a Tchaikovskian inheritance and carries it nowhere new but has a lovely, picturesque time getting there. Hu, Tsang, and An, finally playing as an ensemble, brought an appealing shape and vigor to the surging Romantic lines of the first movement and a gentle wistfulness to the veiled lyricism of the third movement, marked Elegy. The principal charm of the Scherzo was An’s glittering work at the keyboard, and the finale drew from all three players some of the most high-spirited playing of the evening.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.