For their concert at the Bath MozartFest, the Emerson String Quartet chose works by the three composers whose quartets are the very pillars of the repertoire: Haydn, Shostakovich and Beethoven. But, counteracting any overzealous solemnity, they opened with Haydn’s Op 33 No 2 (nicknamed “the joke”), which has wit and playfulness in abundance, with some thigh-slapping rusticity to boot. In the finale, with a deadpan delivery to match the best comedians, they engineered the stop and start again – and again – of Haydn’s humorous play on listeners’ expectations, raising laughter as well as applause.

Following this piece with Shostakovich’s Third Quartet in F major underlined the Russian’s affinity with Haydn and the sleight of hand with which irony insinuates itself into the music. The brute force of the scherzo set up the sense of desolation that emerges in the last part of the quartet, with the dying moments articulating quietly and gravely a transcendent message of hope.

After the interval, in another astute bit of juxtapositioning, the quartet played Beethoven’s Op 131 in C sharp minor, its key an echo of Shostakovich’s Adagio, and reinforcing the restlessly searching effect of the continuous sequence of seven movements. The first fugal subject, with its emotionally resonant sforzato, had an integrity that established the tenor of the whole work as well as the intimacy of the instruments’ exchanges. The Emersons may not excite in the way of younger ensembles, but their finely-honed precision – boosted now with the glow brought by cellist Paul Watkins – made this Beethoven speak with potent directness.