They came in nobly. They went out poignantly. And throughout, the Belcea Quartet offered playing so articulate and vivid, it’s hard to recall a quartet concert as satisfying as Friday’s at Rackham Auditorium, presented by the University Musical Society.

If the material was enticing - adventurous quartets from not only Shostakovich and Britten but Haydn and Schubert - the execution was even more seductive. Playing with great character and emotional reach, violinists Corinne Belcea-Fisher and Laura Samuel, violist Krzysztof Chorzelski and cellist Antoine Lederlin set both the intersections between these pieces and their differences in relief.

Though by no means slight, the Haydn C Major Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, and the single movement Schubert “Quartettsatz” here served as prefaces to weighty 20th century neighbors. And the Haydn was itself a preface to the concert, introducing the features the Belcea adapted, chameleonlike, to suit the four works’ varied climates: razor-sharp timing, perfectly pointed phrases, laser-focused pianissimi, and color, color, color.

If you weren’t looking at four stringed instruments, you might have sworn there were horns in the Haydn’s opening bars; later the cello sang all husky-voiced and hushed, and Belcea took yearning leaps in the clearest soprano. In the Schubert, the Belcea re-employed the thrilling dynamic acceleration we heard in the last movement of the Haydn. Phrases launched like zephyrs and finished like speeding whirlwinds. It made for great drama. But there was also a spaciousness to the Belcea’s Schubert that found its way into the Shostakovich Quartet No. 14 and the concluding Britten Third String Quartet. That’s not to imply any lagging in the swifter movements of these two late-in-life children. The opening of the Shostakovich crackled with a slightly macabre energy; the Burlesque of the Britten enjoyed every bit of its rough, heavy-footed peasant dance. But maybe the essence of these works, written so near their composers’ deaths, is in their slow movements. And it was in these movements that the Belcea did its most moving work. The third movement of the Shostakovich seemed an anguished midnight meditation into which the cello brought comfort. The final Adagio, quieting to nothingness, left us, and the music, totally spent, turned inside out and emptied. And the last movement of the Britten was devastating. The tick-tock off the cello reminds us of time’s passage. And then, the clock stops; the melody can’t finish; life is done. No encore was needed - or indeed, appropriate - after that ending. The music - and the silence - had said it all.