Xtet hits outer limits with ‘Ceiling of Heaven’

Donald Crockett’s new “The Ceiling of Heaven” would make a striking impression anywhere. But placing this five-movement piano quartet at the end of an Xtet new music group program Monday evening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art powerfully completed a cannily planned journey.

The Bing Theater concert moved from Bohuslav Martinu’s folk-based humanism through Toru Takemitsu’s indifferent-to-humans Nature and Peteris Plakidis’ pop-culture tweaking to Crockett’s knocking on the doors of another dimension.

Violinist Sarah Thornblade and violist Kazi Pitelka opened the program by lovingly playing Martinu’s three 1947 Madrigals: affectionate portraits of, in turn, congenial busybodies, ardent and tender nighttime lovers (who may be insects rather than people) and compatriots rejoicing in the streets.

Pianist Vicki Ray and cellist Roger Lebow joined Thornblade for an engrossing performance of Takemitsu’s “Between Tides.” Written in 1993, three years before the composer’s death, this evocative work employs minimal means -- the sounding and decay of single notes, into which are swirled sounds played by other instruments -- to explore dimension, texture and momentum.

From the first piano tone to the evaporating ensemble sound 20 minutes later, the piece irresistibly draws us into a flow that accommodates our presence but sounds as if it could easily proceed without us.

On the other hand, two short works by Plakidis -- “Half Forgotten Sentimental Tune” and “From a Crime Story,” both composed in 1977 and both receiving their U.S. premieres Monday -- depend on appreciation of wit. Bassoonist John Steinmetz joined the piano trio, first in fractured attempts to recall a vaguely familiar tune, then in a merry chase through every noir movie score cliche you’ve ever heard.

Crockett’s “Ceiling,” receiving its West Coast premiere, added the missing vertical above Takemitsu’s breadth and depth.

It opened with a splay of muted colors that blossomed into space and ricocheted between surface and upper boundaries. After a sequence of desert-like dryness and lethargy, it ultimately surged into the heights, to end with ebullient energy and freedom.

The half-hour piece gave the feeling that the evening had covered all bases.