One gets the feeling that for Britain’s Florestan Trio, agony is essential to making music. When recording Schubert’s E Flat Trio, the group dithered over the correct tempo of one movement until pianist Susan Tomes discovered it on a walk through the snow. “Simultaneously it seemed clear that the trudging steps of the slow movement were analogous to a winter journey,” she wrote in the Guardian; this somewhat Eno-like epiphany only contributed to what she calls the group’s “endless discussion” of performances. However tortured the labor, the birth is sweet. Florestan strives to uncover every last detail of the music at hand, be it a Beethoven piano trio or, what’s most promising in this program, a piece by Charles Ives. Look for Florestan to wring crystalline understanding from a composer whose own composition process was just as painfully meticulous.

The Florestan Trio performs at 8 p.m. at the Library of Congress’ Coolidge Auditorium, 101 Independence Ave. SE. $2.75. For reservations call (202) 707-5502.