We are hearing a lot of Elliott Carter’s music in the prelude to his 100th birthday in December. Most of it has been isolated in concerts devoted entirely to his works: safe islets in which confirmed admirers can bask without disturbing nonbelievers or, for that matter, being disturbed by them.

Still, there is something to be gained from hearing Mr. Carter’s music in the context of the broader repertory. When Musicians From Marlboro framed recent compositions by Mr. Carter with standard works by Haydn and Schumann in a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday night, the juxtaposition was instructive.

Hearing Mr. Carter’s Oboe Quartet, from 2001, after Haydn’s String Quartet in D (Op. 20, No. 4), from 1772, you are reminded that Mr. Carter’s tumultuous clashes of equal, independent voices are an extreme but logical extension of the balanced four-part discourse Haydn perfected. Encountering Schumann’s 1842 Piano Quartet in E flat (Op. 47) after Mr. Carter’s piece, you can perceive Schumann’s shifts between dominant and supporting duos in the Scherzo as an antecedent of Mr. Carter’s similar groupings throughout his quartet.

Connections like those can make Mr. Carter’s music more approachable for listeners not steeped in his language. But the expressive potential of his music is realized only in performances of absolute unanimity, and the Marlboro players fell just shy of the mark in the Oboe Quartet, a lucid, witty work in nine continuous episodes.

Priscilla Lee, a cellist, was impressive in the flamboyant gestures of the Andante appassionato, and the subsequent Tranquillo was appropriately icy. The violinist Susie Park and the violist Samuel Rhodes offered lively contributions. Rudolph Vrbsky, the oboist, played accurately, but his performance lacked a persuasive confidence.

Elsewhere there was no lack of assertiveness. Mr. Rhodes, whose years in the Juilliard String Quartet have provided tremendous insight into the workings of Mr. Carter’s music, offered an authoritative account of “Figment IV,” a two-minute rumination Mr. Carter wrote for him last year.

With Harumi Rhodes, a violinist and Mr. Rhodes’s daughter, the string players gave a vivid, balanced account of the Haydn quartet, which opened at an almost conspiratorial hush. In the Schumann quartet Ms. Rhodes, Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Lee were joined by the pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, a gracious collaborator. The Scherzo bristled with eldritch energy, and the lovely Andante cantabile had the character of an operatic scene.

Musicans From Marlboro give their next recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 18; (212) 570-3949, metmuseum.org.