III. Poco adagio

Brahms' String Sextet No.2, arranged in 1939 for string orchestra by Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg. The sextet forms a musical extension of the famous manifest from 1860 in which Brahms and a handful of other musicians rejected the new German school of music as represented by Liszt and Wagner. Instead they argued in favour of a gradual stylistic development in which contact with the classical ideals would be preserved. The sextet has the makings of a full-scale symphony.
Klassik Heute: outstanding.