The Sextet, one of Dvorák’s finest chamber works, makes an excellent pairing with the double-bass Quintet, whose darker sonority is a striking contrast to the Sextet’s expansive richness. The Nash Ensemble are well recorded and play with refined expression while attacking the brilliant, quasi-orchestral music in the two finales with force and spirit. I particularly enjoyed the smiling, sunlit atmosphere in the Sextet’s first movement; and there’s beautiful playing, too, in the Quintet’s Andante and in the Intermezzo.

Offering the same programme, the Panocha disc isn’t as well recorded but in some respects the performances are superior: the variation-finale of the Sextet has more atmosphere and there’s an authentically buoyant rhythmic quality to the more nationalistic episodes – the Sextet’s Dumka and Furiant and the Quintet’s strange finale.

For the Sextet it’s also worth investigating the Vienna Sextet, splendidly led by Erich Höbarth of the Quatuor Mosaïques; a spacious account that stresses the music’s lyrical qualities. A similarly generous response to the Quintet, again featuring exceptional violin playing (Joseph Silverstein) comes from the Lincoln Center recording. And, for that fresh, outdoor quality (one of Dvorák’s essential characteristics) listen to the Gaudier recording, notable for its springy rhythms and wonderfully clear, transparent recorded sound. This Nash recording emerges as one of a number of fine versions, rather than a clear winner.