Members of the Takacs String Quartet, which the Maine Center for the Arts presented Thursday at Hauck Auditorium, do something entirely raucous with chamber music. They make it swiftly applicable to our times by infusing it with a frenetic jubilance and attacking it with a distinctly modern sensibility.

It would be fair to describe this Hungarian group, which was founded in 1975 and quickly achieved critical acclaim, as having a signature style that includes mystery, joviality and tenderness. But the real hallmark of these players is the sound they pull from the depths of their instruments and the heights they build to with straightforward clarity.

When Edward Dusinberre plays first violin, and Karoly Scranz plays second violin, with Roger Tapping on viola and Andras Fejer on cello, it’s as if the roots of the trees that created the grain of their instruments express some connectedness to music. It’s got both velvet smoothness and nervy verve.

This was never more apparent than in Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Opus 18, No. 1. For all their serious talent, the musicians did not overworry this piece. They came up with a fresh, crisp performance that promoted simplicity and humor over glamour. A blocky, regulated opening might have foreshadowed an aggrandized approach. Instead, the musicians showed a remarkably rhythmic grasp of the score.

Their skills got showcased a second meticulous time with Bright Sheng’s String Quartet No. 3, written in 1993 for Takacs. Sheng, who was born in 1955 and fled China for a career in America, wrote this piece based on time spent in Tibet. The composition is a triumph of rhythm and tone. Since a Bartok quartet was listed in this slot in the program, the Sheng might have been a surprise of nightmarish proportions for some listeners. But the Takacs players gave it convincing and distinguished dynamics.

The final half in the two-hour concert was Dvorak’s String Quartet in F Major, Opus 96, also called his “American” quartet. Here, the musicians tapped into the joyfulness of the score and found both exuberance and lyricism. Once again, they proved that they may be primarily playing music written in the last two centuries, but their impetuous sound has a contemporary musicality that is assertive and sharp.