Smetana’s two string quartets make uneasy bedfellows – there must be at least five performances of the magnificent First Quartet, From My Life, for every one of its dark, late counterpart, the troubled and troubling D minor Quartet No 2. And yet, as the Zemlinsky Quartet’s viola player Petr Holman points out in a thoughtful booklet note, the second work was conceived as a sequel: a portrayal of the composer’s life after tragedy, just as the First Quartet depicts his life up to that point.

The Zemlinsky make a powerful case for performing these two quartets together, rooted in a long experience of both pieces (Holman believes they must have played the First at least 100 times). Certainly, the virtues that make their First Quartet so compelling – an intense sensitivity to mood, an instinctive swing to their Czech dance rhythms and a certain rawness (these are performances that have soil under their fingers) – help illuminate the darker corners of the Second and make sense of its often tormented musical argument.

That makes it sound gloomier than it is, but these readings are nothing if not vital, and there’s an undercurrent of intimacy that’s all the more poignant for being surrounded by such rough-cut honesty. Take the slow movement of the First and listen to the veiled, tear-stained collective dolce espressivo as the upper players enter after Vladimír Fortin’s heartfelt cello solo. The fiercest music here has an undertow of tenderness, and the softest is never truly tranquil. The encore – Holman’s transcription of the Comedians’ dance from The Bartered Bride – is swept up in the general urgency: a fitting conclusion to a compelling but far from easy emotional journey.