Several composers, including Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, and Max Reger, attempted to orchestrate some of the piano parts from the lieder of Franz Schubert. We can now add to the list the mezzo-soprano Mary Westbrook-Geha, who presented three of her own instrumental versions with the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble Sunday afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum.

Since by now all of the Schubert songs have been sung by every conceivable range of voice, it is not necessary to worry about the appropriateness of her particular tessitura. Ms. Westbrook-Geha’s trio of arrangements was certainly of interest, but each segment was ultimately unsatisfying in different ways.

Der Lindenbaum is from the cycle Winterreise and was reworked by Gustav Mahler as Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz (The Two Blue Eyes of My Beloved) for his Songs of a Wayfarer. A septet of St. Luke’s strings and winds accompanied Ms. Westbrook-Geha, but in this piece sounded rather fuzzy, in sharp contrast to the crystalline original piano line. There was little or no sense that the hero’s resting place under the Linden tree will in fact be his grave. The group did, however, recall the unique sound of the hurdy-gurdy, perhaps more evocative of Berlin in the 1920s rather than Vienna, Austria, in the 1820s, but Germanic in feel nonetheless.

Ms. Westbrook-Geha has a rounded tone and excellent German diction, including a gorgeously rolled “r,” but she intones rather dispassionately for this type of emotional music. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) was the least successful of the three efforts, with guest clarinetist Jon Manasse mentioning in his remarks that he felt somewhat constrained in his phrasing decisions because he had an entire group behind him with which to coordinate. This interpretation lacked the timbral juxtaposition of wind and keyboard, and Ms. Westbrook-Geha had some difficulties with pitch in this song’s midsection. The eventual coming of spring was not very joyous.

The last time a cellist performed the opening music of Erlkoening was when Morey Amsterdam regularly introduced this famous theme on the old “The Dick Van Dyke Show” whenever the protagonist’s plans went hopelessly awry. Giving this famous melody to the cello in this arrangement, however, only made it seem clichéd, cartoonish. Ms. Westbrook-Geha did an excellent job of separating the various character voices in this Romantic ballad of Goethe, assiduously doubling individual declamations with different instruments, but rather maddeningly never imbuing any of these distinct personalities with intensity of feeling.

Once Schubert took over the instrumentation, however, the concert turned sublime. It is difficult to think of another work as toetappingly exuberant as the Octet, written as an homage to the Beethoven Septet and by far its superior. The St. Luke’s players delivered a very snappy reading, notable for judicious use of dynamics and delicious phrasing. It may have been a tactical error for cellist Myron Lutzke to announce in advance that the work lasts for one hour, eliciting some audible groans from the audience, but most everyone was so enchanted by this splendid realization that the crowd never seemed restless.

Naoko Tanaka played the first violin part with a good deal of relish and Mr. Lutzke and double bassist John Feeney provided not only solid but playful underpinnings throughout. There was a decided sense that the players were truly enjoying themselves and this type of unabashed pleasure was charmingly infectious. The Allegro vivace was pure joy.