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Stile Antico performs Oct. 29 at Yale.

Classical musicians who play chamber music often consider it the most rewarding form of music-making. Yes, it offers moments for each individual player to play out as a soloist, but there's also the thrill of being a part of something larger than yourself. There's a close musical communion between members of a string quartet, for instance, and a pair of recent performances — first by Yale's graduate Jasper String Quartet, and then by their mentors, the Tokyo String Quartet — provided two different perspectives on this art.

It's said the sign of a good music teacher is that her students sound nothing like her. If that's true, the Tokyo Quartet must be great teachers indeed. Though both quartets work the same serious, traditional repertoire (each of them even selected one of their pieces from the very same Haydn collection), where Tokyo cultivates a warm, robust sound, Jasper sounds cool and modern. The Jasper's sparing and sensitive use of vibrato allowed them to match their sounds perfectly, as if each swelling chord were coming out of a single, impossibly well-tuned organ, instead of four distinct instruments.

Maybe that distinctiveness has to do with Jasper members having been together since their years as Oberlin undergrads. Wherever their sound comes from, there's no question it's going someplace great. I did find myself, however, wishing they would tackle solo passages a little more boldly — as the Tokyo Quartet did the next night, without sacrificing a unified ensemble sound.

Tokyo's soloing wasn't entirely even. Founding member Kazuhide Isomura seemed a little underpowered next to the new kids in the group, although his sound was attractive and smooth. But as a whole, they brought a pleasing heft to the program. On my way out of the hall, I overheard one member of the packed audience saying he liked Bartók's Sixth Quartet more than he thought he would; I would have preferred a less burnished, sharper-edged approach to the modernist masterpiece, but this approach was of a piece with the evening's staid and sober tone.

"Staid and sober" might also describe the repertoire of Stile Antico, the young British choir singing at Marquand Chapel this Thursday (409 Prospect St., Yale University; 203-432-5180, music.yale.edu; Oct. 29, free). They'll be singing the music of Tallis and Byrd — two of England's greatest musical geniuses, and Stile Antico's special area of expertise — but the chamber-music intimacy of their performances brings out the drama and even eros hiding just beneath the surface of the sacred anthems of the Renaissance.

Johnson writes music criticism at danielstephenjohnson.blogspot.com.