At first sight, the trio of violinist Sergey Khachatryan, cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan seems to be an example of a group assembled more because of the individual brilliance of each of the soloists than for their pedigree as chamber musicians. But the programme they brought to the Wigmore Hall was anything but the repertory fare generally toured by such starry groups. In fact, it contained only one authentic piano trio – Beethoven’s D major work, Op 70 No 1, the Ghost, played with almost Haydnesque delicacy and finesse – while the bulk of their concert was provided by a fascinating pair of rarely heard arrangements, only one of them for piano trio alone.

That was Eduard Steuermann’s reduction of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, which effectively condenses four of the original six string lines into the piano part and treats the violin and cello almost as concertante soloists. Sometimes it seems just a little too contrived, with climaxes lacking the sinewy intensity of the original, but the most powerful moments – the anguished pleas from the violin in the second section, the transfiguring D major melody for the cello in the fourth – were eloquently projected by Khachatryan and Weilerstein.

The other arrangement, a version of Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony by Viktor Derevianko apparently sanctioned by the composer, introduced three percussionists, too. They were led by Colin Currie, who also contributed a marimba solo, Rolf Wallin’s Realismos Mágicos. Despite the presence of the xylophone and glockenspiel as well as untuned instruments, the result was a bit too monochrome, especially in the discursive first movement, where woodwind and brass colours were really missed, but Weilerstein’s keening solos gave the slow movement a fierce edge, and the finale was as enigmatic as it is in the orchestral original.