A Quartet in motion, with ‘Howl’ and other poetry

Artists from different disciplines have long been inspired by one another's works, often with remarkable results. But both words and music suffer in Lee Hyla's “Howl,” a string quartet written in 1993 to accompany Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem of that name.

A performance on Friday at Zankel Hall by the stellar Brentano String Quartet made me want to scream. The ensemble — Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violinists; Misha Amory, violist; and Nina Lee, cellist — played Mr. Hyla's work against a recording of Ginsberg reading his colorful rant at the status quo, a major work of the Beat Generation.

A poem as long and as dense as “Howl” — whose myriad vivid images are crammed into long run-on sentences — is ill suited for simultaneous musical accompaniment. Music and words seem engaged here in a cacophonous battle with no clear victor.

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