Bach transcriptions are, of course, a commonplace, especially transcriptions of his famous chaconne for unaccompanied violin. All sorts of people have had a crack at transforming it into another medium. As far as I know, Mendelssohn got the ball rolling in 1847, when he simply added a piano accompaniment to the solo violin part, prompting Schumann to invent piano accompaniments for all six of Bach's solo violin Partitas and Sonatas. Brahms stuck in his oar in 1877, by using the chaconne as the fifth of his outlandishly difficult piano etudes, only this time for the left hand alone. Not to be outdone, the 20-year-old Busoni turned the chaconne into a thunderous Lisztian showpiece in 1888.

And so we are off to the races — Busoni was outdone by Stokowski's massive Wagnerian-drama orchestration, and I once heard the piece played on a marimba, origin unlisted and unknown. I've not heard the chaconne played on bagpipes, but that is surely just a matter of time. Meanwhile, we now have the Dudley piano-trio version, completed in 2000 for the Eroica Trio.

Purists cringe at the thought of such carryings-on, but the catch is that no matter what the instrumentation, Bach remains triumphant. More than any other composer, Bach had a super-acute awareness of the interior mathematical workings within sounds. It's almost as if he had something akin to Einstein's theory of relativity at work in the back of his brain, although I doubt he was conscious of it being there. That accounts for the strength of his music, a strength that trumps all considerations of timbre. No matter what you play it on or how you play it, the chaconne remains an indestructible masterpiece.

Dudley's version employs the concertante principle — Ave Beethoven! Her one rather bizarre touch is to add duo cadenzas for the two string players just before the final statement of Bach's chordal theme. It doesn't really need that. While stylish enough, they serve no structural purpose; like all cadenzas, they are there mainly to flatter the performer's ego. The musicians of the Lee Trio are so generally impressive that they hardly need that.

Stookey's lovely Above the Thomas Gate is a kind of free rumination on the second of Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the David Brotherhood), Op. 6. This larger set of movements was written just before Schumann's wedding to Clara Wieck, and indeed they were written specifically for her. Stookey's title actually derives from a letter in which he tells her he thinks of her constantly and hopes she does the same of him, so that their thoughts might meet each other "... above the Thomas Gate." He also wrote that in the Davidsbündlertänze she would find the sounds of "an entire German wedding-eve celebration." In other words, Davidsbündlertänze was a musical love letter.

It was not uncommon for Schumann's passages to feature repeated bell tones in the accompaniments, and sometimes in the melodies. Stookey zeroed in on such effects, and on the general mood of the second dance, quoting only a tiny scrap of it near his closing pages. This seven-minute work shows that he is obviously modern in his outlook on harmony and texture, but he displays a restrained romantic mood that is utterly seductive. Stookey, a San Franciscan, is clearly a poet to be reckoned with, for he has managed to fill a crying need in chamber music: shorter works that can soften longer, formal compositions. Such pieces are few and far between.

Then in marched Schumann himself, in the form of his Third Trio. Like many works in his last great burst of chamber-music writing, his four-movement G-minor trio features soaring arpeggios built into memorable melodies. Before his whiz-bang finale, the whole trio comes across almost like a triple concerto without orchestra, in much the same way as his Concerto Without Orchestra, Op. 14, for solo piano. The Lee sisters used their suave sense of rubato to maximum effect during the brooding first movement, nearly got their instruments to purr for the Romanza second movement, and could yet turn on a dime for the kittenish scherzo. Little wonder the Leipzig Festival audiences and press went ga-ga over the Lees.

Their polish and expressive capacity, in performing the works of such diverse composers, was amazing. Clearly, there was more at work than dexterity; there was brain power coupled with a keen integration of ensemble down to the smallest detail. That's far removed from the usual get-together of famous virtuosos to play chamber music.

Growing up in the Bay Area, all three attended the San Francisco Conservatory's Preparatory Division as children, earning honors and awards there. Violinist Lisa then went on to advanced studies at the Curtis Institute, cellist Angela went to the Juilliard School and Yale, and pianist Melinda worked on chamber music at Harvard, from whence she graduated cum laude. Even now she lives in Berlin for advanced studies in lieder with baritone Thomas Quasthoff and pianist Wolfram Rieger.

I have to wonder whether, as sisters, they fight, scream, and yell among themselves during rehearsals, as most chamber musicians do. No matter; I'd be hard put to remember any trio who, once onstage, played with such total commitment to the music.