The Czech-Jewish composer Gideon Klein’s Duo for violin and cello is the tumultuous work of a young composer, full of sharp angles and pungent harmony, Romantic in its expression, modern in its language. At Monday night’s Symphony Hall gala concert for the Terezin Music Foundation, violinist Si-Jing Huang and cellist Sato Knudsen laid into the piece, giving it a vigorous and earthy reading — until the music came to an abrupt end, trailing off in the middle of a violin phrase.

Klein left the work unfinished, as TMF executive director Mark Ludwig explained from the stage, when he was transported to Terezin in December 1941. Barely in his 20s, Klein went on to play a central role in the concentration camp’s fabled musical life before being transferred to Auschwitz. He perished in the nearby Fürstengrube camp in 1945.