The Belcea Quartet’s repertoire continues to range widely, and those impressed by their Schubert or Dutilleux are unlikely to be disappointed with their Brahms. For me, the most impressive feature is the way the quartet combines care for the overall sound – ensuring that it’s beautifully balanced and, even in the most overwhelming fortissimo, remains euphonious – with a strongly communicative style that has an air of spontaneity. The spontaneity may sometimes be a clever illusion: in the quartet’s third movement the triplet passages where violin and viola play in octaves are performed with a very natural-sounding rubato that yet stays in impeccable ensemble. The following finale, faster than usual, creates a sense of passionate abandon, but with all the rhythmic complexities expertly negotiated. The Poco adagio, played with great concentration and attractive, warm tone, misses out, perhaps, on some of the movement’s expressive opportunities. Certainly, the Alban Berg Quartet, by introducing a wider range of tone colour and playing many passages more delicately, is able to make this piece sound more intimate and touching.

It’s the ABQ’s distinguished violist, Thomas Kakuska, who provides the extra voice in the Op 111 Quintet. The first movement’s grandeur is immediately apparent – the opening has a wonderfully sonorous sound – but it’s a feature of this performance that forte is taken to mean a full sound, not necessarily a very loud one. So, at places where the texture lightens, when the first movement’s second theme arrives, or at the start of the second movement, the music is able to relax. And when Brahms writes a pianissimo, the effect is often quite magical – try track 5 at 5'56"; the effect of such sweetness and delicacy is trance-like.

A further notable success for the Belcea Quartet, then, and a disc every Brahms lover should hear.