Galway’s flute and Emerson’s strings combine for quite a show

But the core of the Emerson’s music-making is more inward, a quietly insistent, wiry intensity. Rejoined by violinist Philip Setzer, they shifted into fierce shadows with Dmitri Shostakovich’s C minor Eighth Quartet. It seemed a visitor from another program: It might have built on the melancholy overtones in “Syrinx,’’ but for Galway’s extroverted luxury; and, in a sense, it did wander in, a placeholder for a new quartet by Thomas Adès the group was to premiere in New York the following day. But the performance had terrific, grim flair, expertly projecting Shostakovich’s moods of both quiet and disquiet, the way he sustained them until the unease is palpable. The players refused to let the audience off the hook, to arresting effect.

Galway returned for a Brahmin artifact, Salem-born and Harvard-bred Arthur Foote’s flute- and string quartet “A Night Piece.’’ The nocturne deploys its ruminating Romantic harmonies with well-crafted charm; the performance, though, was not quite grounded, never really settling in. (Also scheduled for New York, it felt a little like another Boston tradition, the out-of-town tryout.) Debussy’s G minor String Quartet, too, intermittently drifted out of focus, particularly in regard to intonation, but when the energy locked in — especially when riding Dutton and Finckel’s rhythmic drive — the music revealed unexpected, convincing burliness.

Encores were generous: The quartet wrapped its wire in silk for the third of Antonin Dvorák’s “Cypresses,’’ then Galway joined in for the “Badinerie’’ from Bach’s B minor Suite, daringly fast and dashingly fizzy. The only connection seemed to be the players’ eagerness to share. That was enough, really.

Matthew Guerrieri can be reached at matthewguerrieri@gmail.com.