Once upon a time there was a group of American composers who worked very hard to create music of substance and depth, only to find that their efforts were severely underappreciated. It seems they displeased the contemporary gods, whose loyal minions in the critical community shunned these promising artists because they dared to embrace tonality and melody long after these archaic concepts were discredited as anachronistic.

Some members of the group had successful careers outside of composition – William Schuman, for example, even became president of the Juilliard School. But most were relegated to second-class status, even though they still have a champion in Gerard Schwarz, who studied composition with Paul Creston at the Ansonia Hotel.

I have always treasured the music of these men, especially Creston and Walter Piston, and so was attracted to the concert Sunday afternoon at Merkin Hall, where members of the New York Philharmonic had the opportunity to perform chamber music on their day off. The centerpiece of the afternoon was the Clarinet Quintet of David Diamond, another of these forgotten men, who studied composition with Nadia Boulanger.

The featured artist was the principal clarinetist of the Phil, Stanley Drucker. Audiophiles may be surprised to note that this is the same Stanley Drucker who recorded so many brilliant concerto performances with Leonard Bernstein’s orchestra in the early 1960s. Mr. Drucker is in his 58th season with the Philharmonic and thus has spent much more time in his present job than Mozart did on earth.

Another way to grasp his longevity is to note that when he was appointed principal clarinet, the concertmaster of the orchestra was the father of composer John Corigliano, whose “Red Violin” will be mounted by Joshua Bell and the Phil this week. Or how about this? When Mr. Drucker got his job, one of the two senators from my home state of Connecticut was President Bush’s grandfather. At 77, Mr. Drucker is finally old enough to be a candidate to conduct the Philharmonic.

The Diamond is a beautiful piece with a somewhat unusual instrumental plan. There are no violins, but rather pairs of violas and cellos. The resulting feel is autumnal, not unlike Brahms’s great Clarinet Quintet that is the pinnacle of the genre. Mr. Drucker and his mates performed quite sensitively. This was as close to expertise as the audience members are ever going to experience at Merkin’s reduced prices. The Andante non troppo was especially mellifluous, and the exciting Allegro risoluto was thrillingly brisk.

The best performance of the after noon, however, was the realization of the Sonata for Two Violins in C major by Serge Prokofiev. Labeling the key signature as C major was one of the enfant terrible’s best jokes, for the four movements are some of the most dissonant in the repertoire. Prokofiev was literally petrified of hitting a black key when he was a small child learning at the keyboard, but he certainly conquered his phobia in works such as this one.

Lisa Kim did most of the heavy lifting in this moving version, having to exhibit every type of violinistic technique – even including quadruple stopping – to pull it off. Kuan-Cheng Lu kept her grounded by enunciating a solid second part while Ms. Kim soared and swirled across the stratosphere. There was very little left of her bowstrings by the end of this amazing journey.

Pianist Jonathan Feldman broke the first rule of comedy by announcing to the audience that Jean Francaix’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano was funny. In fact, his entire oral introduction smacked of trying just a bit too hard, an impression borne out by the work itself, a toss-off that the composer wrote for a festival at the very end of his long life. Wind players tell me Francaix is one of their most difficult writers, primarily because of his normally thick textures, but this particular effort was really just Sherry Sylar and Judith LeClair noodling around. I realized during the reading that the only way we would know about its humorous aspect was to be told in advance.