Last year the Emerson Quartet released a recording of Mendelssohn’s youthful Octet in E-flat major, a chamber work that reaches symphonic proportions. The quartet managed to double itself with the aid of modern technology: They overdubbed tracks in a studio like a pop single. Peter Martins’s own “Octet,” a ballet set to Mendelssohn’s score, which made its season premiere at the New York City Ballet on Tuesday, uses a similar trick of reduplication. Two teams of four men, wearing either rose or kiwi leotards, move as mirror images of one another, visualizing the baroque polyphonies of the music.

Mendelssohn’s composition is not simply a work for two quartets (Louis Spohr had already written one of those). Similarly, Mr. Martins’s “Octet” is more than the sum of its parts. The two teams, led by Jared Angle and Joaquin De Luz, reproduce the contrasting elements in the score with contrapuntal exercises of their own. Spirited and contemplative by turns, their movements do not mimic the music as much as echo and anticipate it.

Together they practice bounding trampoline turns in the Scherzo, jauntily shifting their weight when they land. In broad shouldering jumps, they rotate their torso or parade their arms. Their fluid transitions help to maintain interest and energy. Two female soloists, Alexandra Ansanelli and Fairchild, also enter the mix. Ms. Fairchild gave an exuberant performance in her onstage courtship with Mr. De Luz.

The artistic strategy of replicating movements in order to develop motifs and build dynamic tension, as opposed to merely accumulating phrases or relying on narrative, unites “Octet” with the two other works on the program, Balanchine’s “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” and Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain,” which also made its season premiere. With the exception of Amar Ramasar, who replaced Edwaard Liang, the original cast danced.

Having exorcised the ghost of Ligeti, Mr. Wheeldon’s recent work moves on to the equally spare, almost mystical arrangements of Arvo Part. Divided into two halves, “After the Rain” depicts the long midnight of lovers’ quarrels, followed by the tender evocation of morning’s ease. Between intervals of melodic rhythms repeated on violin and piano, the ensemble executes classical steps bolstered by expressive modern combinations with the coldness and precision of icicles. Sofiane Sylve skated across the stage with Mr. Ramasar, accomplishing rigid geometries that stung like freezing rain to look at. Occasionally a warm playfulness sneaks in, as when Ask la Cour somersaults out from under Maria Kowroski.

The second half begins a little early with the arrival of Wendy Whelan in red. Soon the ensemble drips offstage and Mr. Part’s “Spiegel im Spiegel,” dawns on the pas de deux between Ms. Whelan and Jock Soto. They certainly bring their experience and virtuosity to bear with the music’s stripped-down, but soaring harmonies. Their movements are lilts and curves, embraces and slow happy tumbles. As a couple, their charisma gives off a pink glow, and they can hardly get out of bed.

Mr. Wheeldon’s sensitivity to the music is as persistent as his eye for nuance and expression – it permits a freedom of motion that expands, not distorts, the inventory that qualifies as neoclassical.

“Octet” will be performed again June 3 & 8; “After the Rain,” tonight and June 18 (Lincoln Center, 212-877-1652).