The Perth Festival’s Brahms Chamber Weekend on February 17–19 ran like a German Romantic feast with side servings of Webern and Brett Dean. And the master chefs behind it? The USA’s crackerjack Escher quartet.

How does a three-course meal sound when prepared by one of the world’s elite chefs? Think aromatic spices, creamy textures and robust flavours skipping over your palate and sending you into a state of ecstasy. Now imagine the musical equivalent: three concerts, masterful performers, impeccable technique and sensuous melodies and timbres. If this reminds you of a very recent musical experience, you may just have attended the Escher Quartet’s Brahms Chamber Weekend at this year’s Perth Festival.

Heirs to the school of North American excellence in chamber playing forged by the Emerson and Juilliard Quartets, this newly formed group from the US seems to have the perfect recipe for success: youth, talent, ambition and the backing of older, established greats like Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman.

The Escher Quartet’s offering to Perth audiences was a tripartite musical feast: three concerts taking place over as many days; first, second and third courses, all dished up with exquisite musical elegance. Three composers were...