A concert called “Strings for Peace” arrives carrying a burden before anybody plays a note. Music has been asked to symbolize international understanding so often that the sentiment can overwhelm the music. At Symphony Space, Amjad Ali Khan and Sharon Isbin were better when they let the instruments do the arguing.

Khan appeared with his sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash, Isbin and tabla player Amit Kavthekar. The central pairing was sarod and classical guitar, instruments with very different voices. The sarod can sound metallic and urgent; the guitar has a cleaner attack and a harmonic vocabulary that immediately marks it as coming from somewhere else.

That difference gave the collaboration its point. Isbin did not try to disguise the guitar, and Khan did not make the sarod more Western to meet it. The most convincing passages allowed each instrument to keep its accent. Khan’s compositions provided common ground without making the encounter sound artificially seamless.

The presence of Amaan and Ayaan made this more than a two-instrument experiment. Their familiarity with their father’s musical language gave the ensemble a center, while Kavthekar’s tabla supplied propulsion when the music moved away from its more reflective stretches.

The concert’s title made a large claim. The performance made a smaller one, and a better one. Musicians from different traditions can share a stage without pretending their differences have vanished. That may not be peace, exactly. It is at least a useful model for conversation.