Art is born from past art but manages to create something new and unfamiliar. The graduate student composers at Brandeis continued this process on Saturday in the Slosberg Recital Hall with their concert "New Works for Strings," where their string compositions were performed by the Lydian String Quartet. The concert is part of the "New Music Brandeis" concert series in which Brandeis' graduate student composers showcase their original work.

"4-Constraints" certainly embodies something new and unfamiliar, written by Michele Zaccagnini, Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory, and conducted by Jeffrey Means. Zaccagnini composed each of the four movements with a rigid structure by writing in "the Fibonacci series (both rhythmically and in the ordering of the different pitch-sets)" or through "the opening sentence of Dante's Inferno in morse code," as the program explains. The work was a curious rhythm. It felt like a Jackson Pollack painting, a splatter of paint translated into sound, both random and focused.

Jared Redmond, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory, composed "Cypresses," a melancholic, romantic work. The imagery I visualized as I listened was not simply Cypress trees, but Vincent Van Gogh's painting of cypresses, in which abnormal colors painfully writhe on the canvas. Redmond sees a new perspective here: a sharp, maddening vision created by his use of untraditional chords. The work built in intensity to a disturbing effect before finishing with unresolved questions.

 "19c," written by Florie Namir, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory, felt like a psychic confusion, a daze one feels after a traumatic experience. Namir createsd this effect through a seeming lack of meter and unsettling, hypnotic chords.

All the composers wrote in this daring style: atonal, abstract and seemingly random. At first hearing, the sounds could be confused for noise, but there were intricate patterns within the music that drew the audience in. The songs required nontraditional techniques, such as col legno (hitting the wooden side of the bow against the string) and untraditional meters. Most of all, they required an adaptive and keen ear.

"Selective Defrosting," written by Tina Tallon, an M.F.A. candidate in Music Composition and Theory, asked the quartet to use further nontraditional techniques, such as suppressing the natural vibration of the string so that the rustling friction against the bow creates the airy effect of a cold wind. A sudden rattled pluck of the cello's strings triggered the rush of the violins before the settled down. Dark fear and agitation enveloped the piece.

The concert took another turn in "Pattern Music for String Quartet," written by David Dominique, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory. I heard a technique completely unimaginable in Haydn's time. The wispy sound of glissando harmonics—created by sliding one's fingers rapidly over the strings—emitted eerie sliding pitches. The deliberate scraping of bows reproduced the sound of grating metal. The repetitive plucking at high pitches hit the listener like hammer against wood. The effect drew curiosity from the listener, causing him or her to question the meaning of the work.

During the intermission, a member of the audience remarked on the fine line between the child who throws together creations without purpose and the student who has gone through all the training, understands the rules of music and breaks them with intent—one who understands them well enough to manipulate them.

This was evident throughout "New Works for Strings," particularly in the last piece, in which the players were hooked up to microphones producing electronic echoes. Soprano Jennifer Ashe added dramatic richness to the piece. In "String Quartet No. 1," composer Peter Van Zandt Lane, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition and Theory reconstructed the elements of sound and the role of electronics and voice to form a new sort of musical, portraying the entire arc of life, death and renewal.

The Lydian String Quartet executed these works with intensity. They played with precision, vitality and full understanding of the color of a musical line and the reaction of a chord. I was amazed at how they could focus on music that was seemingly chaotic and without meter. Certainly, no quartet of lesser caliber could pull this off.

This music seemed in line with artistic progress. Just as painting has evolved from realism to the abstract, and poetry from rhymed-metered verse to free verse, this new age of noise-music feels just right. I have heard this type of music brilliantly used in movies such as There Will Be Blood and The Social Network, in which an electronic cacophony highlights the corruption of power and the loss of innocence. The Social Network even won the Oscar for Best Original Score, composed by Atticus Ross and Nine Inch Nails' Trent Raznor, for the use of this modern style.

I have tried to make sense of this new music style, but this line of thought always leads to more questions. What is the meaning of these pieces? Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. These composers left me uncomfortable in my seat and confused by the lack of structure, with the terrific music on the edge of noise.

But all I can say is that I liked it.