Brahms’ Second Sextet followed his First by some five years. In the interim he produced, among other works, two orchestral serenades, three chamber pieces with piano, and the massive, born-with-sweat-and-tears First Piano Concerto. The Sextet No. 2 reveals a composer who not only has grown in all the elements of his craft, including his skill as a contrapuntalist, but also has crossed over into thirtysomething adulthood. Compared with the geniality of the First Sextet, the Second emerges as a canvas darkened by an austerity, beautiful though it may be, that heralds an aura of resignation that came to characterize so much of the composer’s more mature works.

Brahms’ richness of invention animates the score from the outset. A viola murmuring quietly on a semi-trill figure sets the scene for the main theme in the first violin—two ascending fifths, the first in the home key of G followed by one in the unexpected key of E-flat. The viola figure provides a sense of unrest as the violin finds its way back to the home key after briefly exploring the foreign one. Once the main idea is repeated, with cello interjections of descending fifths, the first cello sings the main theme as violins take up the murmuring figures. The movement proceeds with all manner of appealing and endearing elegance, including a secondary waltz-like theme, presented by the first violin, that is as charming as you please.

Brahms puts the Scherzo in second position, where he expresses a minor-key intimacy in the most sophisticated contrapuntal and rhythmic terms. The middle trio section provides multiple contrasts: It is in triple meter whereas the main section is in duple; the key is G major rather than G minor; and the spirit is dashingly Hungarian. But the underlying strength of the movement, as of the entire work, is the masterful counterpoint that enriches the musical texture.

The third-movement Adagio is not only a set of variations of mighty technical prowess but also music of affecting expressiveness. Brahms had already written the impressive Handel and Paganini Variations for solo piano. Here the string sonorities add a dimension to the variation process that marks the composer as a spiritual seer far beyond his age.

It was an excellent decision to place the Adagio in the penultimate position, considering the busy athleticism of the finale’s main section. The ensemble demands are considerable in the movement’s perpetual-motion passages (which remind one a bit of Mendelssohn’s scherzo ebullience), and the contrasting lyricism radiates with the kind of Brahmsian warmth that is as comforting as anything 19th-century Romanticism has to offer.

—Orrin Howard