The Lydian String Quartet kicked off its fall 2009 concert season last Saturday with the latest installment of its program "Around the World in a String Quartet." As part of a five-year ongoing series that began in 2007, Saturday's episode of "Around the World" featured compositions by Beethoven, Shostakovich and Schoenberg, representing Germany, Russia and Austria, respectively.Performing were Lydian String Quartet members Profs. Daniel Stepner (MUS) and Judith Eissenberg (MUS), violin; Prof. Mary Ruth Ray (MUS), viola; and Prof. Joshua Gordon (MUS), cello, along with guest vocalist Dominique Labelle, soprano.

The Lydians, who have been Brandeis' premiere resident string quartet since 1980, are not only renowned performers but are well-established educators in music, as well. Eissenberg is a founding member of the quartet and teaches at Brandeis as a professor of practice. Ray, also an original member of the Lydian String Quartet, is the chair of the Music department. Gordon has played cello as a soloist and chamber musician all over the world, and Stepner, besides being on the faculty at Brandeis, is also a member of the Boston Museum Trio and concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society.

The Lydians opened the concert with the four movements of Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127. The more traditional harmonies in the piece resonated brightly, showing off the impressive acoustics of Slosberg Recital Hall.

The quartet then gave the program its "Around the World" slant with Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich's Unfinished Quartet. The piece, which ends after 225 bars, was unfinished for unknown reasons. One speculation is that Shostakovich disliked the "na've" style of the quartet, which he described as "a children's piece, about toys and going out to play." According to the extended program notes provided by Stepner, the composer criticized the overly simple conventions of popular music and "their puerile melodies, trite rhythms and generally vulgar tone."

The final performance was Arnold Schoenberg's Quartet No. 2 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 10, which featured vocalist Dominique Labelle in its third and fourth movements. Labelle had previously collaborated with the Lydians, recording John Harbison's String Quartet No. 3 and The Rewaking, which was chosen by The New York Times and Boston Globe as "one of the best recordings of 2001." With the quartet's dark, atonal harmonies and the piercing clarity of Labelle's soprano, the Schoenberg was my favorite composition of the night.

"Around the World in a String Quartet" is proving to be another successful series by the Lydian String Quartet. Labelle and the quartet were treated to a standing ovation by the audience of over 150 people. What keeps this 29-year-old chamber tradition exciting every year?

"We try to program a balance of new and old, standard and off-beat," explained Stepner in an interview. "We have programmed composers from Azerbaijan, Iran, Cuba and many other less-than-likely places."

For their second concert of "Around the World," the Lydians will feature Costa Rica with compositions by Alejandro Cardona. The concert will be on Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall, with a lecture at 7 p.m.