David Matthews’s Piano Quintet is modest both in dimensions and in ambitions: the titles of its four movements – Praeludio, Tango, Ciaconna and Canto – suggest a suite, and they add up to just over 20 minutes. For a piece composed in 2004 the style is also remarkably backward-looking. Notwithstanding the Italian movement designations, there is a clear debt to English pastoralism, most noticeably in the gently flowing Prelude (Elgar’s Quintet is somewhere in the background here). The more extrovert Tango, though undeniably attractive and rather cutely concluded in mid-air, is still essentially a decorous take on such a potentially fiery genre; and while the Chaconne clearly echoes the fourth movement of Shostakovich’s Quintet, its passions are again fundamentally restrained. Inspired by the bell-ringing of an Italian convent, the finale promises much but ultimately pulls up short, as if fearful of excess.

The coupling with the Shostakovich Quintet makes a lot of sense but it also leaves both Matthews and the players exposed to invidious comparisons. While there is much to commend in the playing, especially in the clarity of the Scherzo (despite a bad misreading, or rather an accurate reading of a bad misprint, at 0'31") and the effective characterisation of the finale, the Prelude feels a little dogged, the Fugue could do with more expressive profile and there is some disturbing strain to the string lines throughout. Recorded sound is only fair – the piano looms rather bulkily in places and the acoustic is on the dry side.