Endellion Quartet Intense and Precise

The Endellion String Quartet brought serious music-making to its concert at Founders Hall in Costa Mesa Friday night. Throughout the program of classical and 20th century works, the British foursome kept to a precise, no-nonsense approach that served well during the Seventh Quartet by Shostakovich and the Second “Razumovsky” by Beethoven. However, Haydn’s Opus 76, No. 4, “The Sunrise,” suffocated under seemingly grim determination.

Presented by the Music Guild of Los Angeles, violinists Andrew Watkinson and Ralph de Souza, violist Garfield Jackson and cellist David Waterman attended to Haydn’s score with polished consideration, presenting a united front, and applying rhythmically defined aggression even when a little humor might have lent contrast. Only in the Finale did they relax a bit, permitting a glimmer of amiability to peek through driving exactness.

As an ensemble, the group displayed the agreement and thoughtful interpretations that one would expect after almost 18 years of association (De Souza joined in 1986). In Beethoven’s Opus 59, No. 2, these qualities came together with compelling results, from the bold, dynamically varied Allegro to a propulsive closing Presto, impressive for its relentlessness. In between, the players offered a hushed, contemplative Molto Adagio, made engrossing through controlled and intense use of quiet shades, and an Allegretto marked by fastidious clarity of intertwining voices.

Shostakovich’s very personal Quartet No. 7--written in 1960 and dedicated to his first wife, Nina, whose death in 1954 had deeply affected the composer--found morbid thrust and brittle fury in the hands of the Endellion, which also applied its characteristic control to a contained, painfully inward-looking slow movement.

* The Endellion String Quartet plays this week, for the Music Guild of Los Angeles, at these locations: today at the Pierce College Performing Arts Building, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills, 8 p.m., $22, seniors $17, students $7; Tuesday at the Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall at Cal State Long Beach, 8 p.m., $22, seniors $17, students $7; and Wednesday at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 440 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, 8 p.m., $20, $22 and $24, seniors $5 discount, students half price. Pianist Bernadene Blaha will join for Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Opus 34, which will replace Haydn’s Opus 76, No. 4 on an otherwise identical program.