Lyapunov and Gretchaninov have a certain amount in common with Rachmaninov, in their fates as well as their idiom. Lyapunov was born in 1859 and died in Paris in 1924; Gretchaninov was five years younger and died at a great age in New York in 1956; Rachmaninov was still younger, being born in 1873 and dying in California in 1943. All three, in fact, were born into late Russian Romanticism, and at the Revolution were to suffer an exile that permanently severed their Russian roots.

This is an imaginative coupling by the excellent Dante Quartet. Lyapunov possessed a minor talent but much skill, and his handling of the very unusual combination of piano, string quartet and double bass is creative. There are fewer problems with balance than in a piano trio or quartet, and a characteristic texture in this work is for violin and cello to sing a gentle, ruminative duet while the piano drifts around in dreamy arpeggios and the bass holds the harmonic fort. Not surprisingly, the longest and most appealing movement is the slow Nocturne, an atmospheric piece with a distinct lulling charm. The Scherzo is lively, but the finale makes rather over-strenuous efforts, including by means of a fugue, to provide a concluding demonstration of energy.

Gretchaninov writes the more coherent work, and makes ingenious use of a little three-note theme to bind the four movements together. His own slow movement is less successful than his bustling Scherzo and a finale than balances well with the opening movement. In a way both works, composed in the middle of the First World War, seem to belong to an age that was being lost, but they have a craftsmanship and a charm that should not be denied.