Brahms's Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38, was one of the first works he produced after moving to Vienna, over twenty years before he wrote the Sonata No. 2. It lacks a slow movement (Brahms wrote one but discarded it) and, in place of a scherzo, has one of the last of the old-time minuets. Less dramatic and heavy than its successor, it is nevertheless more dogged in pursuit of its effects, particularly in the finale, which begins with an octave-drop thump in the piano and a fugue subject inspired by a Bach contrapunctus. The cello part lies very low in the instrument's range, and here Isserlis had a little trouble making himself heard.

Quite differently from their approach to the Sonata No. 2, the musicians cut this work down by performing with as much classical restraint as possible and concentrating on the subtleties of phrasing, breaking out only in the fugal finale. In places their restraint produced sensitive beauty, especially in the minuet so unlike its successor's scherzo. The piano quavers in the trio can sound rattling, but Hough entirely avoided this. Still, despite the fine playing, the performers didn't seem to be communicating as thoroughly. At times the work sounded like a piano sonata with cello obbligato; at others the two might have been playing separate works simultaneously. Curiously, they omitted the first movement repeat in this work, though they included it in the Sonata No. 2.

The program was filled out with shorter works by three composers of Czech or Slovak origin. Johann Nepomuk Hummel, though he lived mostly in German lands, was of Slovak ancestry and was born in Bratislava (then called Pressburg, but now capital of Slovakia). His Variations à la Monferrina, Op. 54, however, is Italian in inspiration. Starting with a simple dance, it continues with a long series of clever, even silly variations in a late-Haydn style: some full of runs, some pizzicato, some lyrical. Isserlis made no dramatic gestures here, but he was clearly enjoying himself tremendously and playing with a remarkably fluid ease. Hough's work on the piano was equally fine. That part of my mind which wasn't simply enjoying the music was thinking how much I would like to hear Isserlis perform the Bach cello suites.

The Czech composer Josef Suk put together two disparate works for cello and piano, a ballade and a serenade, as his Opus 3. Isserlis and Hough performed these in the same light, restrained style as they used for the Hummel and the Brahms Sonata No. 1. This worked well for the chirpy Serenade, but the chromatic Ballade – the work that convinced Anton“n Dvorák to take on Suk as a composition student – needs a grander vision and seemed a little strained and overwrought.

The last of the three additional works was by far the most interesting. The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu was living in Switzerland when he wrote his Variations on a Slovak Theme in the last year of his life, 1959. Isserlis presented the theme plainly, without the note-bending pathos I've heard on record, and tackled the five faster, complex variations vigorously with crisp, strong attacks while Hough provided percussive rolling rhythms on the piano.

For encores, we had two short works by the performers themselves. Hough's Angelic Song is a simple, diatonic melody for the cello with quiet sustaining chords for piano. Isserlis's The Haunted House, which he insisted is his only composition, is purely whimsical. With the composer narrating as well as playing, and Hough providing occasional thuds at the piano, the cello imitated creaking doors, squeaking mice, and so forth. The two were heading off to perform a children's concert in Vancouver, B.C., the next afternoon. I expect they played The Haunted House again, and it should have amused the children there as much as it did the adults in San Francisco.