The Engegård Quartet last appeared in these pages in a pairing of Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Quintet (with Nils Anders Mortensen), acclaimed by Richard Bratby for its ‘bracing clarity with music-making of probing intelligence’ (5/20). Previous discs include Schumann’s quartets (BIS, 10/18) and Grieg and Sibelius (LAWO, 4/16), but in parallel they’ve been setting down the Viennese quartets of Mozart, music that has been with them since the group was ‘formed under the midnight sun in Lofoten in 2006’. This instalment joins a first volume containing the other three quartets dedicated to Haydn and one of the three ‘Prusian’ Quartets of 1789‑90.

It’s worth catching up with their Mozart, in the hope that future volumes might take in the earlier quartets and the wonderful (and under-appreciated) Hoffmeister of 1786. The ‘gloriously sunny’ disposition RB noted in their Schumann is abundantly evident here, too, along with a deep understanding of the music. RB also remarked that their sound is warmed from within by cellist Jan Clemens Carlsen and viola player Juliet Jopling – but it is the pairing of Jopling with second violinist Alex Robson that provides not only the momentum that powers these performances but also the glue that binds them together, working in lockstep to provide a secure support for the extrovert violin-playing of leader Arvid Engegård.

They ably capture the give and take between antique counterpoint and comic-opera frivolity that characterises the G major Quartet (K387) as well as the outward-bound antics of the Hunt (K458). Perhaps the best performance of all, though, is of the sphinx-like A major Quartet (K464), its winding counterpoint baked in from first note to last to an almost experimental degree. None of these is a relaxed, expansive reading in the manner of certain older recordings, and it’s a feat to get three of them on a single disc with reasonable (but not generous) provision of outer-movement repeats. There are occasions, too, when the last degree of accuracy is sacrificed to the moment. But that’s hardly enough to detract from the charismatic music-making on offer.