In a fortuitous departure from the Lied Center’s general policy of programming chamber music on Sunday afternoons, the decision to slot the celebrated Emerson String Quartet on Friday night proved a winner.

Indeed, with a knowledgeable audience of more than 1,000 dialed in, the eight-time Grammy-winning ensemble rose to the occasion with an inspired and inspiring program that at evening’s end had the crowd on its feet shouting “Bravo.”

The quartet – violinists Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel – has earned its impeccable reputation the old-fashioned way: by dint of hard work, uncommon talent and a commitment to excellence.

On Friday, the group’s assets were immediately apparent in a genial reading of Beethoven’s appealing “Quartet in F major, Op. 135” (1826) whose bonhomie served as a warm keynote for the evening.

As the opening “Allegretto” unreeled, one could not help but be impressed by the quartet’s hand-in-glove interplay, its attention to the details of dynamics and phrasing, and its ability to shape and transmit Beethoven’s bemused end-of-life contemplations (the quartet was finished just months before the composer’s death in 1927).

In the second movement, the aptly titled “Vivace,” the good cheer of the “Allegro” was exuberantly expanded in dynamic swooshes suggesting the exhilarating abandon of the body in joyful motion – running, skipping, dancing. Here, the quartet’s brilliant technique, impassioned phrasing and pitch-perfect intonation were spot-on. In contrast, by digging deeply into the brooding introspections of the “Lento,” the group’s powerful ensemble sound throbbed with darkly intense sonorities.

Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s “At the Bier of a Young Artist” (1910), as suggested by the title, was a poignant elegy that again called on the somber end of the Emerson’s rich emotive palette. With its astringent harmonies and thickly layered and fully bowed textures, it was also a perfect setup for the evening’s most challenging work.

Bela Bartok’s galvanizing “String Quartet No. 3” was an adventure. Although written in 1927 and incorporating eastern European folkloric elements, the work’s broad emotive armature, with its ingenious interplay of chilling dissonances and romantic lyricism, was bracingly fresh. Calling on bow slaps, glassy sonorities bowed close to the bridge, eerie glissandi and a dizzying array of tempo changes, the Bartok was a challenge more than met by the quartet.

After intermission, the foursome concluded with a triumphant reading of Franz Schubert’s “String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, Op. 810,” better known as “Death and the Maiden.” Situated in the transition from Beethovian classicism to full-blown 19th-century Romanticism, the Schubert is one of classical music’s great touchstones. Through its long melodic strands to the fiery finale, a dance of death tarantella, the quartet again carried the day with a deep musicality at once cerebral and heart-on-sleeve romantic.

The audience’s standing ovation was rewarded with an encore, the “Allegro” from Beethoven’s “Op. 18, No. 5.”