Putting new music next to old masterpieces can be risky, but with this intelligent and concentrated series - three concerts in four days - the Emersons got it just right.

Each programme began with Bach, as transcribed by Mozart or lifted directly from the unspecified instrumental parts for The Art of Fugue. Quietly sonorous, these pieces seemed more than exercises and prepared our ears for the less familiar music that followed.

In the first programme, that music was the Quartet No 4 by Wolfgang Rihm, three movements threaded with moments of Janác...#728;ek-style abandon. The driving, itchy energy of the opening seemed to find resolution as the third movement ebbed away, the wood of the viola and cello bows bouncing quietly against the strings.

Rihm's piece was written in 1981, but Kaija Saariaho's Terra Memoria, featured in the third concert, was completed this year and is an even more focused score. The instrumental lines circle one another, giving the impression of a steady dance, but an angry one: the notes are frequently pushed into harsh, distorted sounds as the bows scrape up the strings. The music is underpinned by a gentle pulse in the form of two plucked notes like a heartbeat; this lets up only at the climax, when its absence is unsettling. Dedicated to "those departed", the piece is the more effective for the way its emotion is contained.

Both works stood up, even next to Beethoven. One of the three Razumovsky Quartets, Op 59, formed the second half of each concert. The first began slightly doggedly, but soon found an infectious energy. The third, vibrant throughout, ended in a fugue whose mad scramble sounded like Bach on amphetamines.

· On BBC Radio 3, January 9-11.