Chavez quartets get stirring premiere at Norton Simon

Mexican culture is undergoing a renaissance, in cinema and elsewhere, and it’s high time the country’s classical music legacy got some props. Southwest Chamber Music did its part Saturday at the Norton Simon, offering the reported first U.S. performance of the complete string quartets of late, great Mexican composer Carlos Chavez.

Chavez’s quartet output was slim enough to fit into an evening, and a short one at that, but the performance seemed substantial, with the intrigue of overdue exposure for an important 20th century figure. Spicily blending Modernist and folkloric materials, the music is demanding stuff, not for the faint-fingered. The musicians here soared, despite some rough spots in this initial performance (to be repeated Tuesday night at Zipper Hall and slated for a recording to be released this summer).

Generally, Chavez’s quartets involve a democratic plan, envisioning the quartet, almost politically, as a unified entity. That attitude led the composer to instrumental redistribution; for his boldest quartet, the second, he swapped out the second violin for the double bass’ lower reach.

His first quartet, circa 1921, mixes a buoyant spirit and moderate Modernism, sometimes suggesting an offshoot of “Les Six” composers. The final slow movement sighs with an inchoate melancholy, ending on an unresolved chord.

The rousing second, begun in the late 1920s but not completed until the 1960s, embodies a flair for music both driving and questioning. That wary propulsiveness marked the opening, the pizzicato-fueled second movement and the finale, which was paradoxically fragmented and exciting.

The brief, Bach-filtered “Fuga H-A-G-C” paid tribute to record executive Goddard Lieberson, and Chavez wrote his third quartet for Martha Graham, concurrently with his friend Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” More emotionally earnest than the second, it’s a handsome thing with brains. Another of his signature slow movements raises high the idea of restrained passion.

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Southwest Chamber Music

Where: Zipper Concert Hall, Colburn School of Performing Arts, 200 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Price: $25

Contact: (800) 726-7147