The pianist Richard Goode, as you may know, is engaged in a “Perspectives” series at Carnegie Hall. That means he’s presiding over a passel of concerts. The latest was on Tuesday night, and the pianist had with him a chamber ensemble: the Brentano String Quartet. These guys are named after Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved” (thought to be Antonie Brentano) – and Beethoven was, indeed, on the program, along with a prior big-manabout-Vienna, Mozart.

Mr. Goode began the concert by himself, with Beethoven’s Op. 119, which consists of 11 Bagatelles. (Actually, Mr. Goode played 12 – I don’t know where he got the extra one.) You don’t hear the Bagatelles very often. Sometimes they serve as encores, in recitals of Beethoven sonatas.

Anyway, Mr. Goode is one to play them, having an excellent sense of line, among other desirable traits. He phrases beautifully, pedals beautifully – does just about everything else beautifully. There are no rough edges in this pianist, nothing discordant. He has an uncanny awareness of line. Accents aren’t misplaced. In the Bagatelles, he was graceful, sparkling, lilting, feisty – humorous. Whatever Beethoven required. I single out a certain A-major song: It made you sigh.

Mr. Goode wore his glasses for these pieces, and used the sheet music. I realize he’s been giving a lot of concerts lately, but that was a little surprising.

And I must say the craze for completeness gets a bit tiring. A week ago, Steven Osborne, a Scottish pianist, gave a recital in this same hall – Zankel Hall (downstairs at Carnegie) – and played Book I of Debussy’s Preludes. All of it. I’ve heard a lot of complete performances of Book I in the last few seasons, and not many performances of a Prelude or two – or five. (There are 12 in that book, as there are in the second.) Did Mr. Goode need to play all those Bagatelles? They don’t constitute a whole. In any case, they’re short.

Then the Brentano String Quartet appeared for Mozart’s String Quintet in D major, K. 593. (They had with them an extra violist, Hsin-Yun Huang.) I don’t know if anyone’s told you, but next year brings the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. You’ll be lucky to hear anyone else for 12 months.

The BSQ (plus Ms. Huang) was decent in K. 593, largely staying together, breathing together, enjoying what they were doing. But this group can grate on you. The first violinist, Mark Steinberg, is widely admired, and understandably so. And yet he can be ladi-da. He has a tendency to daintify music, and in particular Mozart, as he did here. He also missed more than a comfortable quotient of notes. And was his conspicuous foot-tapping, along with an assortment of physical gyrations, necessary? I doubt it.

Musical energy came in the third movement of this work, the Menuetto – but the players had to stop for a minute, as the cellist, Nina Lee, fixed her instrument. The subsequent movement, the Finale, lacked the angelic felicity it can have, but it was not displeasing.

After intermission, the Brentano String Quartet was joined by another quartet – this one of singers – for a Beethoven piece called “Elegiac Song,” Op. 118. Beethoven wrote this in memory of the wife of a friend. And it’s a lovely, humane composition, something we would hear more often, if the forces required were more common.

That vocal quartet consisted of Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano; Russell Thomas, tenor; and Jordan Bisch, bass.The women fared better than the men, as the latter had some notable pitch problems. Ms. Harmer is an upand-comer, who recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut; she is a protegee of Marilyn Horne. As for Ms. Mumford, she revealed an extraordinary sound, contralto-ish, gorgeous.

The BSQ played adequately – and Richard Goode performed a service in bringing us this Beethoven rarity. (I assume he selected the program.)

He returned to the stage to join three members of the BSQ for Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493 – and when he returned, so did unquestioned musical authority. Mr. Goode played splendidly in this piece, and he provided leadership, too. There was no dragging, no interpretive funny business, no la-di-da – just mature, fulfilling Mozart. Mr. Steinberg made welcome contributions on the violin.

In the last movement – an Allegretto – Mr. Goode was limpidity itself. You should have heard those Cminor (and other) scales ripple. This concert had a heading: “Richard Goode & Friends.” Maybe they should have called it “Mr. Smooth & Friends.”