The Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society is putting its finger on the pulse of the city's artistic community and daringly expanding its season with "Bridges," a festival not just of four additional string ensembles, but younger groups with an edgier concept of programming.

A large group of PCMS faithful made the trek to a fresh location, the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side, Monday night for the opening program featuring the Hugo Wolf Quartett of Austria.

The Hazlett is no stranger to successful contemporary music -- the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble held court there for several seasons while it refurbished its image and subsequently its audience.

But while the New Music Ensemble filled the Hazlett with video screens, percussion instruments, theatrical staging and the like, a stationary quartet is another story.

So the Hugo Wolf served as a musical guinea pig. No doubt this is a technically talented ensemble, lean and cohesive in its phrasing, and not without a sense of humor --the evening included the quartet arrangement of Johann Strauss' overture to "Die Fledermaus."

At times, it was a tough road to hoe. Being first out of the "Bridges" block, the quartet seemed muffled during the first half, with a mincing Quartet No. 10 by Schubert and a very light "Fledermaus," full of nifty rubatos that could have been more teasing.

Perhaps it was the presence of not only black sideleg curtains, in place for the run of Attack Theatre's "Preserve and Pursue," but a huge black curtain at the back, which appeared to swallow the sound. ( The exposed brick detail of the Hazlett would convey more warmth , and the addition of sound baffles might have helped.)

Even though the theater had overheated and the microphone would pop at inopportune times, the four musicians emerged for the second half with a robustly authoritative approach in the delightful "Italian Serenade," by none other than Wolf himself.

That fostered some thought on the quartet's program, certainly a modern-day rendering of the capital of classical music, Vienna , and one that was highly vocal in nature -- "Fledermaus," an opera; Schubert and Wolf more noted for their lieder; and the final piece, Berg's passion-driven "Lyric Suite," which has been called "a latent opera."

Here, the Wolf members allowed the surprising emotional elements within the 12-tone format (making this one of the must-listens of 20th-century music) to unfold with a mastery beyond their years. By turn tender, ardent, touching, muscular -- indeed almost singing the lines -- it made up for the less-than-optimum conditions.

It also set up the need to bring this quartet back, for the argument could be made that Pittsburgh really didn't hear them. Hopefully, with Shanghai Quartet, the Belcea Quartet (British) and Alexander String Quartet (San Francisco with John Adams) bringing a national and regional outlook through the spring, "Bridges" will fill an exciting musical niche for the Chamber Music Society.