The Panufnik Quartets have been recorded before, by the Chilingirian Quartet on the defunct Conifer label (12/93) and the Silesian Quartet for Radio Katowice (currently available as a download), but they have never really gained a foothold in the repertoire – quite unfairly since they are in many respects among the composer’s most arrestingly original works. And now, simultaneously, two new recordings appear: one from the Brodsky Quartet (reviewed below), also featuring music by Panufnik’s daughter, Roxanna, and this from the Tippett Quartet, elegantly coupled with Lutosawski’s single essay in the genre.

These are vital performances, edgy and energetic but rich in tone: the Brodskys are more convincing at the ethereal, I feel, at such moments as the ‘Transformations’ movement of Quartet No 1, but both approaches serve the music equally well. One of the most memorable things here is the way Quartet No 2 appears as though from nowhere, only gradually acquiring sonic substance, the apparently extraterrestrial opening melting and becoming more earthly; and something similar happens with the Quartet No 3, written in the year before the composer died. It is subtitled Wycinanki, a reference to the Polish tradition of paper cuts, and the work’s apparent fragility reflects that ephemeral art form. But, as Richard Whitehouse points out in his notes, the work is also ‘didactic’, in an inimitably Panufnikian way, and thoroughly explores different aspects of quartet-playing, aspects clearly relished by the Tippetts.

The choice of the Lutosawski Quartet to round out the disc is inspired because it so neatly and clearly demonstrates the differences between these two Polish composers. After the Panufnik works it sounds bright and acerbic but placing it thus at the end of the programme also enables the listener to hear the tightly structured way in which both composers worked, however different the final results. A really fine disc, excellently played and beautifully recorded.