Dean-Emmerson-Dean at Auckland Town Hall

Brett Dean can't resist tweaking the scores. Picture / Robert Piccoli

Dean-Emmerson-Dean is a trio with a difference. Forget your classic violin, cello and piano. Stephen Emmerson is pianist, but brothers Brett and Paul Dean play viola and clarinet.

Brotherly inspiration may have been the spur for the group. "Whatever sibling rivalry there might have been was thrashed out on the table-tennis table years ago," Brett Dean says. "There's a lot of mutual respect working with Paul and Stephen, but also a lot of fun and frivolity."

Aucklanders can experience one of Australia's most charismatic chamber groups next Monday when the trio brings a programme of Mozart, Brahms, Schultz and Bruch to the Auckland Town Hall, under the auspices of Chamber Music New Zealand. Dean emphasises that Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio is a key work, as the viola-playing Mozart was the first to "see both the similarities and differences in the sounds of the viola and clarinet, as well as the range of the group's colours".

Perhaps it is the composer in him, but Dean cannot always resist the occasional tweak with the music of others. Stick Dance, by Australian Andrew Schultz, has a viola part originally written for violin, and Dean is determined to keep his line "as much in the original register as possible".

"There is something about those dramatic moments when the violin chirps out quite high," he says. "It's an evocative and inventive piece, at times a sort of homage to the bird-catalogue music of Messiaen but in a very individual way.

"It is nice as a composer myself to play music by other Australian composers because I feel I'm getting out and doing my bit for others. It is logical that travelling Australian groups should take a calling-card in the form of our own music."

Schultz's sprightly, spiky Stick Dance is far removed from the ultra-romantic Four Pieces by Max Bruch which closes Monday's programme. Dean stands up for Bruch's unfashionable music. "It's very beautiful and too striking to ignore. I find it ironic that these pieces were written in the same year as Webern's Five Pieces for String Quartet and Mahler's Ninth Symphony, but it is not fair to see them only in that light. Bruch was in the twilight of a long and venerable career."

As to Brett Dean's composing career, any talk of twilight is decades away. Three months ago he played the solo in his new Viola Concerto with the BBC Symphony, to glowing reviews. Other projects include putting Peter Carey's novel Bliss on the stage for Australian Opera.

But he enjoys performing and talks about his time as a violist with the Berlin Philharmonic - taking part in some of Karajan's last concerts - and says it was the conservatism of the German musicians that prompted him to compose.

An Australian friend had seconded him to work on a film soundtrack. "What started off as improv on a reel-to-reel in a grungy studio near Checkpoint Charlie became what I wanted to do."

Auckland audiences miss out on Dean's Night Window, a score that investigates "the state of mind after dark", but it will be included in the trio's Wellington concert. However, Concert FM is broadcasting the concert live on August 3, so you will have the chance to enjoy one of the most individual musical voices from across the Tasman.

Who: Dean-Emmerson-Dean
Where & when: Auckland Town Hall, Monday 8pm