There are so many outstanding events at the Bowdoin International Music Festival — about 80 in July and August — that one has to choose wisely. I lucked out with Wednesday’s UpBeat! concert at Studzinski Recital Hall.

The Ying Quartet played Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5, a masterpiece that easily upholds the tradition begun by Haydn 200 years ago. The result was a standing ovation and cheers from a usually reticent audience. The Ying well deserved all five curtain calls.

The Bartok requires the utmost in passionate intensity, and the members of the Ying Quartet obviously put into it everything they had, from extreme violence to the almost inaudible whispers of the composer’s night music.

The work is full of imagery but not “impressionistic,” if that term implies lack of form. Its beauty is both in detail and in its formal architectural structure. While the instruments produce some strange and percussive effects, there is nothing in the music that goes beyond their traditional capacity. The cello does not turn into a drum, for example.  

Piano players brought up on Bartok’s “Mikrokosmos” will receive a shock of recognition during the Bulgarian dances of the scherzo, with its syncopation and division of nine beats to the bar into groups of two, three and four.

And for those who connect music with politics, the work, written in the United States after the composer fled his native Hungary, contains a terrifying premonition of the advance of fascism.

The quartet’s greatness became evident in comparison with the two other compositions on the program, very well played and interesting in themselves, but not in the same league.

The Sonata for Two Violins by Eug? Ysa?played by Roy Chen and Suyoen Kim, is a virtuoso period piece, a sort of “dueling banjos” for two violins that I found a bit wearing, in spite of the best efforts of the performers. The composer seemed to have forgotten what a rest was, let alone a fermata.

The “Dance of Life,” by Iranian-born composer Behzad Ranjbaran, played by Cyrus Forough, violin, and Kurt Muroki, double bass, was more interesting, as the composer tried to accommodate the vast difference in register between the two instruments. It was also refreshing to hear the bass played with the bow instead of plucked.

The combination also made sense in light of the Persian poem (circa 1350) that inspired it. It depicts the joy and energy that the poet (the bass) receives upon contemplation of his beloved (the violin). It is also as full of double entendres as a play by Shakespeare.

There are three more UpBeat! concerts in the schedule. Since they are usually sold out, it is advisable to order tickets in advance at 725-3895.

Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram. He can be reached at classbeat@netscape.net