One of the benefits of staying around Princeton in the summer is taking advantage of the Princeton University Summer Concerts series, which presents free chamber music performances in Richardson Auditorium.  This summer’s offerings include two string quartets, the first of which was featured this past Thursday night.  The Aeolus Quartet, currently Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School, mesmerized a nearly full house at Richardson Auditorium with a concert of masterworks from the string quartet repertory. Violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violist Gregory Luce and cellist Alan Richardson thoroughly entertained the audience with music of Fran Joseph Haydn, Bèla Bartûk and Antonín Dvorák, each introduced by informative remarks by a different member of the ensemble.

The Aeolus Quartet, named for the ancient Greek god of the four winds, was youthful, energetic and clearly interested in engaging with the audience. Opening with Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 71, No. 2, the Aeolus Quartet brought this work of the 18th century into the modern age, not only with musical exuberance and spirit, but also by the fact that at least two of the musicians of the Aeolus Quartet were playing from electronic devices, rather than printed scores. Haydn’s Quartet was full of Viennese gentility, with long melodic lines from the violins and clean underpinning from cellist Mr. Richardson.

In choosing its name, the members of the Aeolus Quartet sought to convey the idea of “a single spirit uniting four individual forces,” and each member of the Aeolus showed an individual musical personality. Concertmaster Nicholas Tavani was an earnest and sincere player, exhibiting clean fast fingering in Haydn’s “Allegro” passages. Second violinist Rachel Shapiro seemed to be always playing with a touch of a smile, while violist Mr. Luce and Mr. Richardson filled out the elegance and rolling accompaniments of Haydn’s music well.

Bartûk composed his final string quartet, String Quartet No. 6, in the fall of 1939, on the brink of World War II.  Bartûk built this quartet around a “Mesto,” a slow melody played “sadly,” which introduced each movement. Mr. Luce was very busy in this Quartet, introducing the melodic material and leading the rest of the players in unified intensity. The endings of each movement were particularly well executed, tapering away with unified bowings and dynamics which seemed to dissipate into the air above the audience.  Mr. Richardson led the jagged second movement “Marcia” with the “Mesto” melody played by the ensemble in controlled unsettledness, no doubt reflecting the times in which the piece was composed.

The Aeolus Quartet took a step back chronologically but further into Americana with the closing work on the concertó Dvorák’s String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96. Composed during the composer’s time in the United States, this work resonated with 19th century pioneering and wide open spaces. Beginning with a broad melody from violist Mr. Luce, the first movement unfolded with a “prairie” feel to the texture and a wide range of dynamics from the players. Concertmaster Mr. Tavani gracefully introduced a gypsy-like melody in the second movement, mournfully answered by Ms. Shapiro on second violin and accompanied by rich playing through all registers by cellist Mr. Richardson. Sections of this work had a hoe-down feeling as the players brought out the fresh and open character of the music. An encore of a Beethoven “Cavatina” reminded the audience of the Aeolus Quartet’s proficiency in grace and elegant playing.