With the recent retirement of the Alban Berg Quartet in Vienna and the Lindsays in Britain, arguably four of the 10 best string quartets performing today hail from the relatively small Czech Republic. The Prazak, Talich, and Skampa Quartets each have a unique sound, and a case can be made for the Panocha as the most eloquent of all (what pianissimos!).

Now another foursome from Prague is challenging their elders. The Pavel Haas Quartet made what Carnegie Hall dubs its “distinctive debut” at the Weill Recital Hall on Friday evening. Achieving world-class success is a long process. The Haas has made the initial steps with great confidence.

At first glance, one would think that Leos Janacek’s string quartet known as “The Kreutzer Sonata” was an homage to Beethoven, but in actuality it was inspired by the Tolstoy short story of the same name, which uses the Beethoven as a plot device. The quartet (Veronika Jaruskova and Maria Fuxova, violins, Pavel Nikl, viola, and Peter Jarusek, cello) dug in powerfully to this dark work, which features many unusual effects, including intense sur ponticello bowing. The episodes of freneticism were intoned with great accuracy — in general, this group is extremely accomplished technically — but the slower, more lyrical passages were presented in a rather monochromatic manner, their loveliness not allowed to breathe. This was in many ways a youthful performance, long on the febrile, short on the tender.

Choosing Dvorak’s “American” Quartet for this maiden voyage in New York might have been a bit of a cliché, but the work is so magnificent that nobody could argue with its relevance. On one level, this was a fine realization, but I found it ultimately unsatisfying. Boris Kroyt, the violist of the Budapest Quartet, used to warn of the dangers of overpracticing. This current version seemed rehearsed to death. Although every phrase was presented faithfully to the printed score, there was little sense of the beauty of these infectious, original melodies. Fast was preferable to slow, the concluding “train across the prairie” very skillful.

Perhaps this is generational, but the Haas Quartet did not seem well coached about the important dynamic changes in the famous “Lento.” Recently, the Vertigo Quartet committed the same error of omission in the same movement aboard Bargemusic. What many consider the apex of Romantic phrase manipulation for exquisite effect was instead simply stated declaratively. Is this a trend among the twentysomething crowd?

It would have been logical to finish the night with the third great Czech quartet writer, Bedrich Smetana, but instead the ensemble opted for a different deaf composer, tackling one of the sublime late quartets of Beethoven, the A Minor, Op. 132. At intermission, I assumed that this type of subtlety was simply beyond the reach of this youthful group, but actually they did a fine job of presenting at least the bare bones of the skeleton. The approach of the ensemble, eschewing the warm for the clear, left Beethoven’s snippets of thought to emerge without any restrictive overlay of emotional freight or filigree. This is a legitimate, straightforward gambit; the music itself carries enough profundity without embellishment.

The Pavel Haas Quartet possesses a great deal of raw material. It will be interesting to see how it develops over time. Certainly, the potential is there, but now a long period of nurturing is necessary. After all, Mr. Kroyt and his mates didn’t produce their great Beethoven performances until they were all well over 50.

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It seems but yesterday that the Takacs Quartet was another aspiring foursome just down the road from Prague in Budapest. There was, in fact, a Takacs in the group then, but first violinist and founder Gabor Takacs-Nagy left in the late 1990s to become a concertmaster and conductor. The foursome has experienced some upheaval with subsequent personnel changes, hitting bottom with a simply awful concert at Zankel Hall in 2005. Since then, though, there has been a significant rally, and they were back in Carnegie’s basement on Saturday night.

The ensemble (Edward Dusinberre and Karoly Schranz, violins, Geraldine Walther, viola, and Andras Fejer, cello) began with a lively and stylistically satisfying quartet of Haydn, the G Minor, Op. 74, No. 3, known as “The Rider.” No namby-pamby bloodless interpretation, this was instead a pleasantly vibrating declamation leading to exciting passages of rapid give and take, a conversation between enthusiastic neighbors. The blended sound was superb, surviving the occasional squeak from the first violin.

When Johannes Brahms was in the throes of composition of his weighty and intensely serious first symphony, he created a diversion for his overwrought psyche by composing the third and final of his string quartets, the B Flat Major, Op. 67. This is difficult music to pull off, as it contains much humor and lightness of expression. The group handled it by employing the same assiduous classical balance that they had imposed upon the Haydn, making this work from 1875 sound more like one from 100 years previous, a manipulation of historical time that the composer would have cherished.

The second movement, the Andante, is built around one of the most ravishingly beautiful of the Brahmsian melodies, and these musicians presented it with an admirable controlled intensity. The third movement, a minuet in everything but name, explores an unusual sound world. All of the instruments except the viola put their mutes on for the duration and the result is a remarkably understated background that slowly works its way into the forefront of the listener’s consciousness. Not only were the viola solos sweet, the supporting cast was in full flower by this section’s lovely conclusion.

Anyone who doubts the passion of the Piano Quintet of Cesar Franck need only know the story of its world premiere performance, when Madame Franck walked out of the hall once she realized that the piece was dedicated to the composer’s mistress. This is white-hot Romanticism that requires deep commitment to insure not only exuberance but also restraint.

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joined for this fertile reading. He is one of the great pianists of our day, able to employ a light touch even in heavy passages. He set rather a brisk pace, but was able to sustain it with only one minor incident of messiness in the inner voices. The quartet attacked the work with relish and seemed to feed off of each other’s excited utterances. Perhaps the best performance of the evening was the tender “Lento,” a charming but heavy-breathing interlude that was expressed sotto voce, the shimmering sexuality all the more vibrant for its quietude. This was music making of the highest order — no one under the age of 18 was admitted.

The Takacs Quartet has seen a number of changes but now is poised to regain its place at the top of the heap. Since Ms. Walther, an American, joined in 2005, they have reinvented themselves once again. Resident at the University of Colorado, they play Carnegie Hall on a regular basis. It is very pleasant to look ahead once again to many nights as rich as this one.