The nine members of the new Exelente ensemble lived up to their name Saturday, excelling in a program of Italian music that began with the Concerto for Oboe, Strings and Harpsichord in B Flat Major by Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751).


Oboist Yevgeny Nepalo performed the virtuoso passages of the first and third sections with penetrating brilliance. The oboe's more pensive moods were given voice in Nepalo's delicately nuanced rendering of the expressive Largo movement.


Nepalo, 59, has reigned for almost 40 years as one of Russia's top musicians. A soloist since 1962 with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, he also directs the Exelente ensemble, which premiered at the Conservatory's Rachmaninoff Hall.


Nepalo's credits include performances of concertos for violin and oboe with Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh. First singled out by Russian conductor Kirill Kondrashin, the oboist was the first performer in the Soviet Union of several works by Vivaldi, Telemann and Bach. He has recorded concertos for oboe and orchestra by Vivaldi, Bellini, Mozart and many other composers.


Exelente is the successor to a group founded by Nepalo in 1977 as an ensemble of soloists from the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Exelente's members are also drawn from that orchestra, now known as the State Chamber Orchestra of Russia.


Nepalo's performance of the Albinoni concerto was followed by the Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo "La Follia" by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), superbly played by Pavel Bereslavtsev (violin), Dmitry Tatishchev (cello) and Dmitry Chepiga (harpsichord). The three soloists were well matched, expressing a range of melodic shadings, from joyous to tender, from mysterious to sad.


The Corelli work was inspired by folk themes that originated on the Iberian peninsula, and the La Follia motif -- "La Follia" means "reckless merriment" in Portuguese -- was used by many other composers, from Boccherini to Rachmaninoff.


In the Sonata for Two Violins, Cello and Contrabass in G Major by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), the ensemble's bass player, Yaroslav Lobov, had written an additional part for the viola. The addition, performed with authority by Viktor Ignashin, complemented the melodic content of Rossini's piece and harmonized with the original concept of the composer, who, incidentally, wrote the sonata when he was 12 years old. The work abounds in charming melodies reminiscent of Mozart and Haydn, whom Rossini greatly admired. Exelente brought these melodies to graceful life, with the versatile harpsichordist Chepiga moving to the violin, where he proved himself equally gifted.


In the second half of the program, two leading pupils of the Gnessin Music Lyc?e made their premieres -- violinist Masha Lazareva, 11, and harpist Sonya Zilper, 14, the latter a winner in international competition.


The two young musicians delivered pleasing performances of the Sonata for Violin and Harp by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) and the Andante with Variations for Violin and Harp by Rossini. They demonstrated the musicianship and artistry of future soloists, with Lazareva producing a lovely, rich singing tone in the first movement of the Donizetti.


Lazareva, who is Nepalo's granddaughter, represents the third generation of musicians in her family -- a lineage that began with Nepalo's father, who played the trombone in several Moscow symphony orchestras.


French horn soloists Vasily Sharkov and Alexei Bulgakov acquitted themselves well in Rossetti's Concerto for Two French Horns, Strings and Harpsichord. And the Quintet for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Contrabass by Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) was given a heartfelt performance that would no doubt have pleased its composer, who once remarked: "Music exists to speak to the heart, and this is what I strive to do."


The encore moved some in the audience to tears: Nepalo and Lazareva led the sweetly melodic second movement of the Concerto for Violin, Oboe, Strings and Harpsichord by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). It was a touching musical conversation between grandfather and granddaughter, a moment in the passing down of a grand tradition.