Latinoamericano Scores Urban Landscape : Classical music: The quartet, based in Mexico City and Pittsburgh, tunes into diverse cultural backdrops.

In cities with underground transit systems--real cities like New York, Paris and London--musicians often bring a little welcome sound and color to an otherwise dreary nether world. It’s not too often, however, that the subway system commissions the music.

But that was the case with “Metro Chabacano,” one of the works to be performed tonight by Cuarteto Latinoamericano at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Named for one of the stations of the Mexico City subway, it was written by Javier Alvarez for the quartet to accompany a huge kinetic sculpture that also resulted from the arts grant.

Cuarteto first violinist Saul Bitran recalls the unveiling: “It was rush hour. The sculpture was an escalator with dummies on it. We played the piece, and the sculpture began to move. It was amazing. People had no idea what was going on. They saw this string quartet playing, this escalator going, and there was no seating. They stopped to watch.

“And time froze.”

The music was recorded and played continuously over loudspeakers for three months, after which the sculpture was dismantled.

The program in Irvine, jointly sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music and Orange County Philharmonic societies, will also include the String Quartet No. 4, “Musica de Feria,” by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas; String Quartet No. 5 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos; “Four for Tango” by Argentine Astor Piazzolla, and Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No. 1 in D.

The members of Cuarteto Latinoamericano--Saul and Aron Bitran, violins; Javier Montiel, viola, and Alvaro Bitran, cello--say that offsetting Latin American music with more traditional repertory enhances its appreciation (they generally program a classical quartet by Haydn or Mozart).

Saul Bitran outlined reasons for the striking differences between the two repertories.

“We don’t like labels, and it’s difficult because most Latin American composers have traveled in Europe and the United States. But the message (of Latin American music) is unique, and it has much to do with the landscape and the popular music you hear.

“The urban culture may make even more difference. In Pittsburgh, everything is orderly and organized, very rarefied and quiet. You land in Mexico City and first thing you have the noise, smells and visual clutter. There is more chaos, much more vitality.

“Music is an abstract language, but any artist is fed by what he sees on the street. And at the street level, everything (in Latin America) is more intense.”

Aron and Alvaro Bitran were born in Chile; the Bitran family has lived in Mexico since 1974. The members of the quartet, all in their 30s, live half the year in Mexico City and half in Pittsburgh, where they are quartet-in-residence at Carnegie Mellon University.

The brothers began playing string quartets with their father, an amateur violist, when Saul was 8. “We actually got to travel quite a bit through Mexico and to Cuba,” Saul remembers. “We were called Cuarteto Bitran, and we took it very seriously.

“When we became professional, we had to kick our father out--very nicely, of course. He now has a quartet with his friends, and I have to say that sometimes I think they enjoy it more than we do. They really look forward to that one night a week when they rehearse, as opposed to rehearsing every day.”

Cuarteto Latinoamericano was formed with Montiel in 1981. Its digital recording of string quartets of Villa-Lobos, Revueltas and Alberto Ginastera received high critical praise upon its release on the Elan label in 1989.

The group has been coached by members of the Amadeus Quartet, and Bitran underscored the importance of study north of the border.

“The discipline of art (in the United States) has had a lot to do with development of culture in Latin America,” he said. “We have learned to be rigorous in technique, that the message is not the only thing. Most of our composers have spent a lot of time learning the technique of music writing, which is far more developed here.

“We’ve also learned a great deal about marketing. In Latin America, that’s not considered important when you talk about art. We tend to think that an artist just has to sit down and write and paint and everything will take care of itself--which doesn’t happen. We’ve learned that art doesn’t lose its context, that it can be perfectly compatible with marketing. Besides an artistic group, we are also a small enterprise.”

Bitran tempered his vision of a bright future for Latin American music with a lament for the present.

“It’s going to be part of the major repertory of music series around the world, which hasn’t happened yet. It should be a staple of any musician’s repertoire, yet when quartets play contemporary music, they usually play Bartok, seldom a North American piece, and never a Latin American piece. That is a very sad state of affairs.”

* The Orange County Philharmonic Society and the Laguna Chamber Music Society present Cuarteto Latinoamericano playing works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Astor Piazzolla, Silvestre Revueltas, Javier Alvarez and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky tonight at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. Curtain: 8 p.m. Tickets, $12.50-$25. (714) 553-2422.