Concertante's performance resonates.

Byline: John Zeugner

COLUMN: MUSIC REVIEW

If musical composition is a mathematical enterprise (and it is surely more than that), then six is a threshold number for some very great composers.

A string sextet signals a transition to compositional mature superstardom. These composers' sextets indicate they've found depths of musical passion with a dip into sublimity that will suffuse the rest of their musical life, deepening their work even as they return to compositions for less than six. Brahms made that leap with his first string sextet at age 31, Dvorak followed at 37. Mozart, characteristically, blazed the way, at age 16 with his sextet No. 1 in G.

Or maybe six has nothing to do with compositional genius, but rather everything to do with audience understanding. Maybe doubling the violin, viola and cello to reach magic six reveals and teaches audiences the mind-boggling range chamber music opens up, more than any trio, duo or solo could. Doubling the impact of these three instruments liberates the brain to feel the horizonless universe that music embraces.

Well, whatever, Brahms' sextet in G minor and Dvorak's sextet in A always provide an incredible audience rush. This reviewer is an absolute sucker for them. Thus, Saturday night's concert by the superbly gifted chamber group Concertante at Tuckerman Hall was the apex of this musical season, capping off a week in which there were four terrific chamber concerts. Concertante tackled both the Dvorak and the Brahms sextets, fully capturing the energy, lilt, delight, mesmerizing interplay and lush conviction of those pieces.

There were two fellows, Xiao-Dong Wang, Ittai Shapira (violins), and four women, radiant in long gowns and stiletto heels, Rachel Shapiro, Danielle Farina (violas) and Alexis Pia Gerlach and Sarah Carter (cellos). The group went deeply into this wonderful 19th-century music and came out on the other side pure.

Elysium. Brahms himself labeled Dvorak's sextet "infinitely beautiful," calling it "this glorious ingenuity, freshness and beauty of sound." There were moments of melting command between Gerlach's haunting cello tone and Wang's sweet violin melody in the opening Allegro, pure lilt in the Dumka second movement, frenzy worthy of the name of the third movement, Furiant, with themes ricocheting all around the semicircle of six. There was dark, resonant cello work in the trio section, followed by a stem-winding concluding finale. The sunny, blazing melodic genius of Dvorak shines all through this piece and serves as precursor to the sunny brilliance of his sixth symphony to be performed by the Czech Philharmonic Feb. 5 at Mechanics Hall.

After the intermission, Concertante took up the Brahms sextet. The opening movement is filled with swells of melody that are nearly tear-inducing. They are magical explorations of the emotional impact music can have. This opening Allegro is long, and so filled with transporting moments as to be thrilling and exhausting. But the focus and energy of Concertante never faltered. Usually sideways glances and occasional smiles of a chamber group signal their joy in music-making, but Concertante seem so directly engaged as to be buried in the notes with communication truly immediate and subliminal. The focus and intensity brought to the music was breathtaking. At the end the standing, cheering audience brought them back to stage front several times.