The concert at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara on Saturday evening gave proof — if proof were needed — that this community’s musical riches are truly vast.

Pianist Natasha Kislenko and cellist Alicja Dutkiewicz glowed in a concert of works spanning the decades from Mendelssohn to Rachmaninoff. The church’s vaulted sanctuary provided the music with superb acoustics and golden candlelight.

Santa Barbara does not lack for fine venues, from The Granada to the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall. But this church concert showed the depth, as well as the breadth, of our musical resources. Furthermore, Kislenko is a member of the keyboard faculty at UCSB, handing on her artistry to new generations of musicians.

The first piece was Felix Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 58, with its lively plucking in the second, allegretto scherzando, movement. Dutkiewicz hails from a “distinguished family of musicians” in Poland, according to the program, and trained at the Eastman School of Music and USC. As was to be expected, she brought technical mastery to her performance; she also brought Slavic soul.

The Russian-born Kislenko produced a lot of Slavic passion of her own in Peter Ilyitch Tchaikowsky’s “January” section of The Seasons, dubbed “By the Fireplace.”

The two young women ended their program’s first half with Papillon, Op. 77 for Cello and Piano by Gabriel Fauré. Any doubts about the cello’s agility were put to rest — this music was a veritable butterfly ballet.

The second half of the program was given over to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, Op. 19. This is a complex, emotionally stirring work that illustrates the Russian master’s abiding romanticism.

Rachmaninoff’s biographies have described the composer’s passion and how he poured it out in his music. Of course, he also endured his own doubts and depressions. Standing on the edge of his personal chasm and looking down were bound to result in deep melancholy at times. But with Rachmaninoff, there is always the redeeming beauty of the music. This pianist and this cellist earned a grateful ovation at the end of the mighty work.

Next in the Unitarian Society’s series will be “Getting a Handle on Handel,” a concert celebrating George Frederich Handel, at 3 p.m. Sunday, with organists David Gell, Mahlon Balderston and Myline Furey, and the Westmont College chamber ensemble led by Michael Shasberger.

Margo Kline covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.