Those qualities, as well as a decisiveness manifest in tempos that could seem almost relentlessly fast, so completely animated Beethoven's Quartet in C minor (Op. 18, No. 4) that a listener willingly overlooked the occasionally strident violin tone, and even the tendency of the ensemble to veer toward harshness in particularly vigorous passages.

That flaw, though only occasional, was harder to overlook in the Ben-Haim Quartet (Op. 21), which did not quite match the solidity of the Beethoven. That was a pity. Composed in 1937 by a German יmigrי who settled in Tel Aviv and became Israel's first well-known composer, this should, by right, have been the ensemble's signature piece. Mostly, the fraying occurred in the two middle movements. In the easygoing pastoral opening movement, and in the finale, which draws on Jewish folk themes, the performance was notably richer and more polished.

The second half of the program was devoted to Mendelssohn's Quartet in F minor (Op. 80). As in the Beethoven, the sound of the group -- Rachel Ringelstein and Hadar Cohen, violinists; Yoel Greenberg, violist; and Tami Waterman, cellist -- was sometimes rough-hewn. But the performance was shapely and passionate, and if the finale was sometimes a bit breathless, it had a sizzling, visceral quality that was hard to resist.

Published: 11 - 15 - 2004 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 1 , Page 8