In 1865 Brahms’ mother died, and it led to his Requiem, of which I wrote earlier. In the same year he composed his second string sextet. The gravity of the requiem would not spill to this work though, and he told his publisher it would be as cheerful as the first.
The genre of the sextet is like a string quartet, but with added cello and viola. So all instruments of the family are in pairs. That gives this combination a very balanced colouring. A major difficulty in performing these works is that there are not many established ensembles that can do it. Usually it is members of an orchestra doing a side gig, or a quartet with added cello and viola players. I cannot come up with a single, dedicated ensemble for string sextets.
I also found a big, mostly empty index card inside. It seems this record was coming from some internal Philips collection in Baarn. Anybody who has heard of this?