Tuesday evening’s concert by the Johannes String Quartet used late-life masterworks by Mozart and Schubert as companions for the Buffalo premiere of an intriguing new work, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Homunculus.”

Mozart’s Quartet No. 22 in B-Flat, K589, was written in 1789, at a time of acute financial, medical and domestic distress. But you would never deduce this by listening to K589, which strikes a Mozartean peak of suave sonority and elegant lyricism.

Chamber musicians will tell you, however, that this is very difficult music and only when played to near perfection does its radiant elegance bloom.

The Johannes musicians seemed to catch every nuance in the opening Allegro’s luxuriance, seamless but for a few punctuating pauses, while the slow movement’s pensive demeanor was superbly introduced by the unusual upper register cello lines.

The Menuetto and Finale bathed in the same immaculate intonation and ensemble warmth, making the taxing Mozart lines sound beguilingly simple and the entire listening experience unadulterated pleasure.

Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in Dminor (called “Death and the Maiden”) also was composed at a time of fiscal and personal anguish. But unlike Mozart, an obsession with mortality does come through vividly in this magnificent Schubert opus.

The quartet opens with a defiant flourishes that color the following main theme and pretty much the entire work. The guests proved equally adept at projecting Schubert’s drama and its few moments of contrasting resignation. The slow movement’s variations formed a great arc of intensity, beautifully weighted by the artists. The Scherzo’s vigor was tempered by sadness, and in the feverish Finale the ensemble maintained impeccable ensemble while the sense of struggle generated a gripping performance that brought a chorus of cheers.

“Homunculus” was written in 2007 for the Johannes Quartet. According to primitive theory, a homunculus was a microscopic little man residing in male sperm that grew to a child when implanted in a woman, thus explaining human reproduction. This appealed to Salonen’s sense of whimsy and his 14-minute work was the result.

It opens with rapid dissonant chatter that returns from time to time and is built on sudden shifts in rhythm, mood and harmonic texture that keep the listener constantly off guard. It speaks with intense lyricism, pulsing rhythms, arpeggiated wanderings, shades of minimal-ism, striking glissandos, and, although not strictly tonal, is full of conventional melodic and harmonic intervals. Above all, it is music that convinces the ear that it is really going somewhere.

How all this is related to the concept of a homunculus is anyone’s guess, but the dedicatees obviously reveled in playing the work, handling its twists, turns and frequent gear-shifting with great aplomb.

-----

Concert Review

Johannes Quartet

Presented by the Buffalo Chamber Music Society. Tuesday evening in the Mary Seaton Room of Kleinhans Music Hall, Symphony Circle.