"Spots" (1986), which opened the program, includes a movement in which a vigorous cello melody is supported by the rhythms of a bounced basketball.
In the concluding Allegro, Mr. Talich performed the melody with vigorous energy, effectively supported by his colleagues.
Yet there is plenty of changing detail in the way the individual lines are accented, and at times the tremolando line becomes the backdrop for vigorous chordal bursts and graceful melodies built of the wiry, bent notes a pipa player might produce.
The shock of that news can be heard in the melancholy and nostalgia of the middle section, which follows a vigorous opening where snippets of melody and explosions of sound tumble over harmonica drones.
Ms. Liu, who initially made her reputation in the West as a singer in jazz and rock bands, ranged from brusque, chanting voices and vigorous percussion to swirling string melodies and angular dance rhythms in "In-Corporeal I".
The short, involving "Old and Lost Rivers" (1986), originally a symphonic score, matches an angular, range-jumping melody to a nonstop vigorous counterpoint.
The ensemble, which managed just fine without a conductor, brought luminous sound and lyrical grace to Grieg's wistful "Two Nordic Melodies" and gave a vigorous, technically assured account of "Sarek" (1992), by the Norwegian composer Terje Bjorklund, a short, restless work that recalled Neo-Classical Stravinsky interspersed with shades of Sibelius.
There was square dancing, to be sure, but as always, just as much vigorous foot tapping to the lovely, speedy melodies.
You would not bet the store that Tang music actually sounded like "Pacifika Rondo," but the Juilliard musicians gave the score, with its sliding string and flute melodies and full-throttle percussion, a vigorous, colorful reading.
In Turkey, the vigorous "movement" of Alevi Muslims has made the melodies of the saz, an instrument closely related to the tanbur, the basis of their collective ritual, or cem, which is mainly composed of dancing or semah, led by women.
