A composer who did not shape history but was shaped by it, Leipzig-born Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) is familiar today through occasional airings of his completion of the String Quartet in F by Grieg (whose eulogy spawned the title of this disc), yet he exerted a keen influence on Dutch musical life in the early 20th century. These four works were written over a decade (1921-31) and find the composer allying his formidable technique to a reticent yet never impersonal expression. The Piano Quintet is a fine example of his mature idiom: the restrained anxiety of its Andante followed by a vigorous Scherzo, then an austere Lento that serves as introduction to a wide-ranging finale which brings the work full-circle. Reger is evident in its harmonic richness, whereas the Clarinet Trio is indebted to Brahms in its autumnal hues and also in the cunning motivic connections between its three movements. The Viola Sonata has a rather greater emotional range - proceeding from a charged Allegro to a haunting Andante, then a quixotic Scherzo and a finale whose chromatic inflections are redolent of early Schoenberg. The String Sextet is the latest piece, with its middle movements - a suave intermezzo and an often fervent sequence of variations - being a particularly significant contribution to a surprisingly neglected genre.

Superb performances by Canada's ARC Ensemble, in an ideal chamber acoustic, make this disc an evident pleasure. “Right Through the Bone” his music's impact may not be, but Röntgen is a figure worthy of revival.