After the glorious programming aberration that brought Chanticleer to the Southern Theatre last week, the Columbus Chamber Music Society returned to their roots last night with a solid program by the Cavani String Quartet and guest cellist Joel Krosnick at the Gloria Dei Worship Center of Trinity Lutheran Seminary.

Although Gloria Dei has been the chamber music hall of choice in central Ohio, CCMS officials have announced their hope to move to the Southern next season. The sound may be even better there and the seats more comfortable, but the setting will be less intimate.

Last night Cavani played Beethoven's Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3 and the second quartet, Crosswinds by Margaret Brouwer. Krosnick, cellist of the Juilliard Quartet, joined the Cavani for Franz Schubert's Quintet in C Major, Op. 163.

Notwithstanding its published place in Op. 18, No. 3 was actually Beethoven's first. There are echoes of Haydn and Mozart, but the young titan has found his own voice.

The reading was virile, energetic and expressive.

Brouwer, who heads the Composition Department at Cleveland Institute of Music, composed Crosswinds in 1995. Her interest in traditional American folk music emulates Bartok's use of central European folk idioms, not imitatively but to influence melodic shapes, harmonies, and rhythms. Brouwer was called from the audience to accept the warm response to her occasionally complex but attractive music.

Schubert was terminally ill at age 31 when he completed his quintet in September 1828. He died the following November and may never have heard the work played. If angels have ears, he has heard it many times since.