A lot of young string quartets these days have you sitting on the edge of your seat. With the Wihan Quartet, which played at the Frick Collection on Tuesday evening, you lean back, and your ears quietly put their feet up.

“The sound these Czech musicians make — beautifully balanced, centered in warm, dark regions of tone color, musical in every part — is deeply pleasurable and also deeply traditional.”

They are continuing the long history of Central European quartet playing, a fact they duly recognize in taking their name from Hanus Wihan, who founded the Bohemian Quartet a century ago.

It is no insult to Leos Cepicky, their first violin, to say that he is not their leader. Nobody leads. The music leads. These players have very little use for the nods and glances that many quartets use to communicate as much with their audiences as with one another.

“When the Wihan musicians need to make a sudden entry together, they just do so; abrupt chords are firmly in place, and sonorous from the strength in each note.”

Yet their performances do not sound at all drilled, but rather thought through and felt through. The Wihan’s playing is roomy with rubato, and the musicians regroup with natural ease around whichever of them has the main line at the moment.

“Going with the flow like this requires an alertness that was largely hidden, to the music’s benefit.”

Mr. Cepicky — performing as part of the flow, not its originator — was able to find persistent grace and loveliness in the first violin part. Playing as his partner, by no means his subordinate, Jan Schulmeister showed what fine music the second violinist gets to play. He came over as a more varied spirit than Mr. Cepicky, and a nice contrast.

On the viola line, Jiri Zigmund is another superb musician. A very characteristic moment for this ensemble came in its Dvorak quartet, Opus 51 in E flat, when he had to imitate a theme played by Mr. Cepicky, and did so with a little more leisure and grandeur, without at all upsetting any of his colleagues.

Throughout the concert, the cellist, Ales Kasprik, offered bass support that was reliable without being overprojected. He also played a nice hand of resonant pizzicatos in Beethoven’s C major ”Razumovsky” Quartet.

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