On the tombstone of Anton Webern in the Austrian Tyrol is engraved a Latin motto with five rows and five columns of letters. The sentence reads the same horizontally as vertically. Webern loved this sort of wordplay and fashioned many of his miniature compositions in the same double acrostic manner. The most complex of these constructions is his Concerto from 1934, which was the centerpiece of the concert on Saturday at Zankel Hall as the Ensemble ACJW offered their first valedictory evening.

The group is the performing arm of the Academy — a joint venture between Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute — which aims to educate some of the best and brightest musicians at the graduate level and integrate them into the New York City public schools. How they fare as educators is yet to be determined. As performers, they are decidedly first-rate.

The Concerto is a mathematical wonder, pitting a three-note motif against a background of two beats and constantly varying the content of the musical motto without altering its form. With the addition of strict dodecaphonic technique, this is very difficult music to pull off, but the nine instrumentalists, led by conductor Brad Lubman, conveyed not just its labyrinthine nature but also its musicality. Sadly, with its frequent rumbling overtones from the nearby subway, Zankel Hall is hardly the ideal venue for a work that depends so mightily on the silences between phrases.

That silence was also shattered in the opening of Nordwest from Mauricio Kagel’s “Die Stuecke der Windrose” (a workable translation would be “Points of a Compass”). Mr. Kagel is from Buenos Aires, so northwest for him means the Andes. His piece is a highly inventive depiction of the primitive music of the highlands. It should begin in darkness and silence with the low sound of one drum eventually leading to the rhythms of nine instruments, including kazoos. The commencing stillness, however, was instead a rumbling, noisy fiasco.

Also on the program was Henri Dutilleux’s Les Citations, a combination of two pieces written five years apart. “For Aldeburgh” was composed for the 75th birthday of tenor Peter Pears, who was the focal performing point of that British festival. The unusual instrumentation, which included a harpsichord, hinted at nostalgia, while the music itself was proto-Romantic. The solo oboe struggled a bit, but overall this was fine music making. “From Janequin to Jehan Alain” attempts to unite five centuries of French music, and again employs the ancient keyboard.

Perhaps the most impressive performance of the evening was that of Gyorgy Ligeti’s knotty Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments. This is the Ligeti of the science fiction film, the Ligeti embraced by the psychedelic community and Stanley Kubrick. Although the title is an homage to Alban Berg’s piece of the same name, the structure is much more that of Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, including a middle section filled with changing harmonic colors. Again, the players demonstrated depth and breadth beyond their years. If they can communicate even a small fraction of their passion for our beloved art form to a younger generation shamefully bereft of artistic opportunity, they will be doing noble work indeed.

When Dmitri Mitropoulos made the first ever recording of the Symphony No. 1 of Gustav Mahler with the Minneapolis Symphony in 1940, the Chicago and Northwest Railroad’s 400 Streamliner was delayed so that its passing would not disturb the session. Those who have attended a concert at Zankel Hall will recognize the relevance of this story.