New Zealand Trio at Auckland University Music Theatre

Crikey, this is long, was cellist Ashley Brown's warning as he introduced the first item on the New Zealand Trio's Sunday night concert. But although Schubert's E flat major Trio clocks in at 40 minutes, the capacity audience had not come along for three-minute pop bytes.

Throughout, there was a sense that the musicians were still working towards an interpretation. A little more sinuousness would have served Schubert well and, in general, strings took too much time to warm up.

The gleaming passagework of pianist Sarah Watkins was a bonus, particularly in the scherzo and the finale, where Schubert seems loath to leave us, offering tune after gorgeous tune.

Tonic Continent, by Australian Andrew Schultz, conjured up images of vastness as Watkins suggested it would, her rumbling piano delineating the space between echoing strings. The piece was most effective, too, when there was a keyboard backdrop.

Two movements from Rachel Clement's Shifting States were a welcome preview.

The titles of the Christchurch composer's short pieces gave them away. Knowing that she had been inspired by the processes of glass-making made the first, Skittering and Un/stable, a journey into translucence. The second, Hardening, had Watkins dispensing chordal glitter against whispering strings. Both showed the ensemble at its best.

A spirited Brahms C major Trio had all the polish that had eluded Schubert, evident when violin and cello shadowed one another in the opening of Andante con moto.

The tensile dialogue of the initial allegro was ardently argued and some earthy pizzicato from Brown hinted at a snappy Hungarian turn that would be the high point of the following movement.

Tonally considered where Schubert had sometimes been tentative, violinist Justine Cormack achieved beautiful viola-like sonorities in the scherzo's trio and all three caught an orchestral expansiveness in the finale.

How could a tango encore be avoided when the New Zealand Trio had just returned from Brazil? Piazzolla was left in the green room and we were treated instead to Enrique Francini's La Vi Ilegar with a performance that would have held its own in the ritziest tango palace.