At West Point Grey United Church on Friday, October 7

A warm clannishness was palpable at West Point Grey United Church for the opening concert of the Vetta Chamber Music series, this year marking its 20th anniversary. Why the family feel? For one thing, an autumnal whiff of homecoming was in the air as the subscribers exchanged summer news. It was also a homecoming for the co-artistic directors, violinist Victor Costanzi and cellist Eugene Osadchy: well-known stalwarts, relatively recently decamped, Costanzi for New York, and Osadchy for a teaching position at the University of North Texas. Family was more than a figurative presence. Osadchy's mother, Raisa, took tickets. His wife, Elena, disbursed programs. It sounds small-town and poky, and in a way, charmingly, it was. But when it comes to the music-making, small-town and poky don't apply. This was playing of a very high order.

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra associate concertmaster, violinist Joan Blackman, and violist Yariv Aloni joined Costanzi for Zoltán Kodály's Serenade for Two Violins and Viola. This three-way conversation is transparent and democratic. Each part is accorded equal weight, with the viola often given a chance to lead. Aloni's beautiful baritone sonorities should have put to rest the many jokes musicians love to tell at violists' expense. ("What's the difference between a violist and a seamstress? A seamstress tucks up the frills.") Blackman and Aloni also joined Costanzi and Osadchy, with pianist Arthur Rowe, in a dynamic performance of Robert Schumann's powerhouse piano Quintet in E Flat Major, Op. 44.

Schumann damaged his hands with a finger-stretching machine he invented (clever) and used (not so clever) at the keyboard. Last February, in Texas, Eugene Osadchy slipped on wet pavement. Reflexively, he reached out with his left paw. Nothing broke, but his knuckles remained horribly swollen for months. His professional future was uncertain. This was his first public outing, post-episode. He dedicated his performance of the Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 19, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, to the physiotherapist with whom he worked intensively this summer. The sonata, from 1901, was written after Rachmaninoff, creatively blocked, sought treatment with the hypnotherapist Nikolai Dahl. It's a melodic work of romantic, Brahmsian sweep; passionate, and schmaltzy in every good way. Osadchy and Rowe did themselves proud, and the feeling of exaltation, of homecoming, that must have washed over Osadchy with the applause is easy enough to imagine.

"He's 80 percent back," his wife Elena told me afterward. Maybe that's how he feels. You'd need to add another 25 percent to know how good he sounds.