Johannes Brahms commenced his published works with sonatas and, except for a quartet of songs and several preludes for organ, ended his compositional career with them as well. On Saturday evening at the Weill Recital Hall, Emanuel Ax, in an effort to give something back to his beloved art form, offered three of those sonatas performed by six young musicians who had spent the week benefiting from his guidance while immersed in intensive study.

The workshop, sponsored by the Weill Music Institute, included on its faculty Richard Stoltzman and David Zinman. Even Peter Schickele got into the act, striving to teach his young charges a bit about public speaking so that they could introduce their own performances. It was rather endearing to note that they still need a post-graduate course in this topic at some future date.

The sonatas for clarinet and piano were the culmination of Brahms’s art, remarkably evocative and passionate while expressing a Wordsworthian state of recollection in tranquility. The emotions are so close to the surface that they bubble up seemingly uncontrollably, causing his friend and fellow composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg to dub them the “two glorious flood-tide sonatas.” The F Minor received a superb performance this night.

Spanish clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester is a major talent. Not only does he possess the requisite technical skills, but he has proven, in appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and elsewhere around town, that he has a musician’s soul, a poetic sense of phrasing and timing, and a deep, woody sound to boot. He did a fine job of traversing Brahms’s introspective and retrospective atmosphere, painting evocative pictures of conflicts remembered and sweetness recalled. Nothing seemed beyond his grasp, as his tone varied from steely to breathy as appropriate. This was very sensitive music making.

Having heard Mr. Franch-Ballester before, I was not surprised with his poetic eloquence, but was totally knocked out by the intense pianism of his partner du jour, the Lithuanian Andrius Zlabys. He played as we read that the composer did — strong-handedly, a bit dominating perhaps, but with a confident ability to move the music along, employing superbly crafted little crescendos to increase excitement. Mr. Zlabys has mastered the art of intoning loudly without being clangorous and performed virtually flawlessly throughout. With some additional life experience, these two aspirants will eventually be able to invest this autumnal music with the proper degree of world-weariness but, for now, this was an exceptional performance.

The “F Major Sonata for Cello and Piano” is a mature work but, like the clarinet pieces, harkens back to the joys of youth. Unlike the clarinet sonatas, however, there is no overlay of memory, but rather an immediate evocation of a less bridled time. Written on vacation at the Swiss Lake Thun, the work is sunny and delightful, a precursor of the famous “Double” Concerto with its expansive cello part.

Cellist Jonathan Lewis navigated these waters expertly. He is strong and dexterous and presented a virtually mistake-free rendition. His tone, however, is rather pale, and many passages that should have been more laden with meaning took on a throwaway quality without a sense of resonant richness. Perhaps he simply needs a better instrument.

Pianist Yoko Kida was superb, handling the inner voices with panache and gravitas and moving from Brahmsian mood to mood seamlessly. It was a golden opportunity for her to study this part with Emanuel Ax, who has made arguably the finest modern recording of the piece — with Yo-Yo Ma — and she made the most of it.

The team of violinist Alisa Rose and pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi were much further behind their mates in their journey toward elegant classical communication. Although they did a creditable job in the Un poco presto con sentimento movement from the D Minor Sonata, overall their turn at bat was fraught with problems. Of course, attending seminars like this one should help immeasurably.

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It is difficult to find a work more musically, intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally satisfying than “The Goldberg Variations” of Johann Sebastian Bach. At around 70 minutes, however, they are just a tad short to comprise a full concert experience. To compensate, pianist Jeffrey Kahane began his program for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Friday evening at the Society for Ethical Culture with a lecture.

Mr. Kahane talked of many things, including cabbages and, if not kings, then at least counts. The nobleman in question was Count Hermann von Keyserling who, being an insomniac, commissioned Bach to write a piece that his harpsichordist, one young Herr Goldberg, could perform for his soporific pleasure. Mr. Kahane called this famous story into question. The cabbages refer to the penultimate movement of the Goldbergs, wherein Bach inserts a popular ditty titled “Cabbages and turnips drove me away,” a rowdy criticism of rural German cooking.

Mr. Kahane’s comments were rather scholarly and demanded a great deal of erudition from his audience. The ushers had distributed pages of sheet music and audience members were expected to follow along as he and Chamber Music Society co-director Wu Han provided examples at the keyboard. He spoke eloquently about such topics as numerology, cosmology and, of course, musicology, but when he veered off into a discussion about Parmenides and Pythagoras, I wondered how many were still rapt with attention. From my perch in the balcony, it was easy to spot fidgeting, conversation, and downright desertion.

After a short break, the performance proved to be only fair. To say that Mr. Kahane was not too interested in keeping a steady rhythm is not a complaint but rather an observation. What was admirable about this rendition was its sense of structure, an overarching pacing that revealed the colossal shape of the piece. Additionally, it was clear that this particular exponent of Bach at the modern piano is consumed with great love for this music, which he has performed annually for over 20 years. Certain variations, such as the “crown of thorns,” were very well constructed and highly charged.

Had this been, say, a Haydn sonata performance, the playing could be described as muddy, but a case could be made for Mr. Kahane’s lack of crispness being employed to suggest the more overtonally nebulous harpsichord. What is more difficult to explain away is his equivocation, particularly in fast passages that simply got away from him. Critics always fall back on the Glenn Gould recordings as the gold standard — even Wu Han mentioned them in her opening remarks — but this is rather unfair since Mr. Gould was notorious for demanding hundreds of retakes of individual passages. But those of us who heard Garrick Ohlsson tackle the Goldbergs at Alice Tully Hall in 1999 know that it is indeed possible to get through all 30 virtually unscathed and still convey the powerful emotional message.