Backed by floor-length curtains, the little stage nestles below ranks of seating designed for an audience of perhaps only 200. The Adelaide Festival Centre’s Space Theatre works well for chamber music, especially when the audience sits in darkness, warm colours spotlighting the musicians who seem only a few feet away. Here, as part of the Adelaide French Festival, Seraphim Trio played Ravel.

Violinist Helen Ayres introduced the concert as a celebration of the Paris Conservatoire’s ‘bad boy’, Maurice Ravel, who never could win any of the conventional composition prizes, yet became a dazzling success in spite of the establishment’s disapproval. First up was his Sonata for Violin and Cello, dedicated to the memory of Debussy, its spare lineaments emulating the pared-down, stripped-back economy of Debussy’s own later styles.

Together, Ayres and cellist Timothy Nankervis started out with soft and personable sounds, befitting both the cosy performance space and the comfortable chatter of the opening melodies. More outgoing were the second movement’s pizzicato romp and the slow, drawn-out chorale of the third movement, where the cello, innocent of vibrato, introduced the theme with absorbing simplicity of tone. But with only two instrumental lines, there is nowhere to hide in this sonata. At...