An intriguing point arises in the second movement. It is meant to be Adagio but the Gaudier pace it fairly swiftly, offering a reminder that one edition marks it Andante un poco mosso. The Vienna Octet of 1957 followed this instruction, but its 1990 counterpart preferred something slower. The Gaudier, though, are anything but perfunctory. Their line is curvaceous and malleable with a dynamic range that contains many shades of softness. Engineer Tony Faulkner has helped by using the ambience of the Henry Wood Hall to create both a blend and a distinctiveness of timbre. There is a glow to the sound that the other versions don’t have.

The Gaudier’s control over the grading of tonal intensity draws attention to the fact that many passages in this work are written piano or pianissimo; and where leavened by hairpin accents, stabbing sforzandi and even fortissimi they supply necessary impact without being crude. If there is one movement that encapsulates all that is striking about this performance, then it is the fourth – an Andante with seven variations. Here is an example of how these musicians balance themselves (best illustrated by clarinettist Richard Hosford entering wraith-like to shadow Marieke Blankestijn’s violin from bar 9 of the first part of the theme – track 4, 0'17"), and how they have thought about the different facets of the music. Were he alive today, this recording might even persuade Schubert scholar Maurice JE Brown to change his mind about the seventh variation, which he described as ‘a distasteful episode’.