Last night's season-closing Music Toronto recital by the Tokyo String Quartet showed how a failsafe program doesn't have to translate into a safe musical experience.

A full house at the Jane Mallett Theatre might easily have been satisfied with a polished performance by one of the world most renowned and respected chamber groups of three string quartets by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), who was already an undisputed master of many musical genres by the time he wrote them in the closing years of the 18th century.

But, in a performance that demonstrated why these musicians rise well above the ordinary, violinists Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, violist Kazuhide Isomura and Clive Greensmith on cello breathed a special intensity into their interpretations.

In the way Beethoven used classical musical forms as a point of departure for his own expressive stretching, so the Tokyo Quartet took the familiar and pushed its interpretive boundaries into the extraordinary – without resorting to cheap sentimentality or theatrics.

Each of the three Op. 18 String Quartets — Nos. 4, 5 and 6, performed in sequence – were given their own character, with common expressive elements.

Quiet passages became mere whispers of sound. Minuets and scherzos danced like light reflecting off a shiny, moving object.

The closing, fourth-movement statements in all three pieces were given an extra shaker of spice, with speeded up tempos and emphatic rhythmic textures.

This was an evening of music that kept the audience on the edge of their seats, mesmerized by an established ensemble playing as one living, breathing organism.

Last night's performance was the second in a three-season series that will have the Tokyo perform all of Beethoven's string quartets for Music Toronto. You may want to circle Jan. 21 and April 8, 2010, on the calendar in anticipation.