Relistening to the Emerson Quartet’s Gramophone Award-winning Bartók cycle for September’s Classics Reconsidered, I was reminded of how, as recently as 1989, it was still considered remarkable for a Bartók quartet recording to be both accurate and pleasant on the ear. How things change: a generation on, this new recording from the Jerusalem Quartet is precise without ever being inflexible, and at the same time (or so it comes across) effortlessly, luminously beautiful.

It’s not just a question of tone quality, though the Jerusalems make some gorgeous sounds. Listen to the misty quality that cellist Kyril Zlotnikov and viola player Ori Kam, in particular, bring to the opening of the Second Quartet’s finale; equally, near the same movement’s climax, how firmly and eloquently all four players voice the partially double-stopped answering phrases. There’s an assurance about this playing that’s satisfying in its own right, giving the Second Quartet an overall feeling of blossoming lyricism and the Fourth an almost playful sense of swing. The acoustic is generous but not exaggeratedly resonant.

It’s in the Sixth Quartet that the doubts really begin to crystallise, and much depends upon what you want from a Bartók quartet recording. I felt a trace of stiffness in those mesto opening solos, reinforcing a suspicion that the group isn’t, perhaps, finding as much strangeness in this music as certain older recordings do (think of the Végh or Takács Quartets). Work in progress? Hopefully we’ll hear more Bartók from the Jerusalems in future. But meanwhile, these are civilised, outward-looking readings, placing the music firmly in the Classical-Romantic tradition, and there are plenty of listeners who’ll respond warmly to playing of such sincerity and beauty.