National Sundays / Adrien La Marca

Halfway between a quartet and a chamber orchestra, the string sextet (i.e., two violins, two violas, two cellos) opens a sound field that Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss play wonderfully. The former paints a wordless opera that earned him the nickname "Spring Sextet," carrying a flood of images that the filmmaker Louis Malle would later dress up in Les Amants ; the latter disguises the sextet as an operatic opening, to touch on the timeless c...