A little-known chamber gem at Menlo

Because the work of even the well-known Russian masters is done in such a spotty fashion in the U.S., there are unsuspected gems still waiting around many corners.

To call Sergei Taneyev’s Piano Quintet in G Minor, which occupied the second half of Tuesday’s vibrant concert in the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton, a gem would be putting it too strongly.

Taneyev, a student and friend of Tchaikovsky, was a product of the conservatory system that burgeoned in Russia in the latter decades of the 19th century — which is to say that his music was cosmopolitan in outlook, and focused on rigorous technical mastery and academic models.

The festival’s founding artist directors, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel, formed the structural underpinnings of the ensemble, and they were joined by violinists Arnaud Sussmann and Sean Lee and violist Paul Neubauer in a fiercely committed performance.

Sussmann, Lee and Neubauer, together with violist Matthew Lipman and cellist Nicholas Canellakis, led off with a richly textured rendition of Brahms’ String Quintet No. 1 in F, giving particular emphasis to the music’s fluidity and denseness.

[...] flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and pianist Wu Qian made a formidable partnership in a firm, clear-eyed account of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata.