Visceral playing from the Penderecki Quartet

Music, for the Penderecki String Quartet, is a necessity, not an option, and the quartet plays it avidly. First violinist Jeremy Bell fixates on the score but bounces off the chair to make vigorous attacks. Opposite him, violist Christine Vlajk takes in her colleagues with a half-smile that lights up the whole room.

Cellist Paul Pulford is a quiet, stoic presence, but his fingers fly. Second violinist Jerzy Kaplanek’s face crackles with energy and ideas.

On Monday, in the first of two programs in the Leo S. Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the quartet played works by Shulamit Ran, Peter Hatch and Bartok. Tonight, it plays music by Haydn, Brahms and more Bartok.

Ran wrote her String Quartet No. 2, “Vistas,” in 1989 for the Taneyev String Quartet of Leningrad. The 25-minute, four-movement work evoked a world of ghettos and villages, of mournful songs and intoxicated joys. If there are any hopeful vistas ahead, there are also hurtful memories behind.

Hatch’s “Gathered Evidence” (2000) ingeniously used amplified string quartet and sampled sound (from music appreciation lectures to random landings on the radio dial) to comment ironically on the commodification of music today.

A theme from Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony insinuated sadness but also magically survived its pop distortions. The piece went on a little too long, and the final spoken John Cage quote about music being everywhere simply stated the obvious. Still, it was engaging enough.

The quartet closed the program with an intense and, as appropriate, rugged and elfin performance of Bartok’s Fourth String Quartet.

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Penderecki String Quartet

Where: Leo S. Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

When: Tonight, 8 p.m.

Price: $12 to $17

Contact: (323) 857-6010