The G Major String Quintet, which was the featured work on an excellent program on Monday evening presented by the chamber group Concertante at Merkin Hall, was intended by Brahms to be his final effort, a rich, valedictory summing-up of his 56 years of aesthetic and life experience. His satisfied, autumnal mood lasted for approximately one year, until he met the clarinetist Richard Muehlfeld and began to compose once again, creating his great series of pieces for this instrument and arguably his most profound works for the piano. But like Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, the string quintet stands as a reflection on a career, even though that career continued further.

This was a powerful rendition that tackled the unique logistical problem of the quintet head-on. Brahms wrote the opening passages for the two violins and two violas as forte, expecting the cellist to intone the main theme so loudly as to emphasize its especially expansive nature. In fact, the theme had been originally projected as a motto for a proposed Symphony No. 5. Contemporary cellists objected and the composer reneged for a while, toning down the accompaniment to a more acceptable level, but ultimately restoring his original idea in order to force the cellist to express in the most passionate of terms. Violinists Xiao-Dong Wang and Ittai Shapira began at full voice, as did violists Ara Gregorian and Rachel Shapiro, leaving cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach no choice but to pull out all of her stops. The result was a big-boned solo by the cello that was subsumed in the general melee. Luckily the repeat comes relatively early on, and we could all enjoy this thunderous theme writ large without the din below. Outside of the recording studio, this may simply be an insoluble problem.

Elsewhere, the ensemble played tenderly. The openings of both the exquisite Adagio and the mysterious and importunate Un poco allegretto were achingly communicated, the former in a superb solo by Mr. Gregorian, the latter by the sensitive phrasing of Mr. Wang. The group also captured the essential robustness of the work, which harkens back to the rough-and-tumble sea chanties of Brahms’s youth in Hamburg and specifically his two early string sextets. The final czardas, opening in an exotic B minor before coming home to G major, was quite thrilling and executed with intense precision.

Joining the group was New Jersey Symphony and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra oboist Robert Ingliss, who contributed handsomely to an alternately lively and lovely F Major Quartet of Mozart. With Mr. Shapira, Ms. Shapiro, and cellist Zvi Plesser, he also offered a rarity, the Phantasy Quartet of Benjamin Britten. This was one of the young composer’s first successful works and is a creative mood piece that begins and ends with a ghostly march played pizzicato by the cello. The ensemble did a superb job of bringing out its vivid color and projecting the deep emotional overlay that was always present in this sensitive man’s music.

In the otherwise helpful program notes, the work is mistakenly stated to have been dedicated to “legendary British oboist” Eugene Goossens. Actually it was his son or grandson — there were two conductors in the family named Eugene — who was christened Leon Goossens and who premiered the work in a BBC broadcast of August 1933.