Anyone who encountered the Marmen Quartet in a superb performance of Robert Simpson’s First Quartet at a Proms chamber recital in 2021 will know that they are an ensemble with which to reckon, amply confirmed by this debut focusing on string quartets by Hungarian composers.

Ligeti’s First Quartet (1954) is a firm favourite of younger ensembles. Easy to hear why when the Marmen are so alive to its unbridled energy, grating humour and sombre introspection. This reading is equally assured in the formal trait of a single movement that conceivably unfolds as 17 episodes (as in the score), eight sections (as tracked here), four movements or three phases (as in the annotations). With his Second Quartet (1968), Ligeti recast the Bartókian prototype, its initial four movements, respectively scabrous and plangent then methodical and visceral, leading to a pointedly anticlimactic finale. Elements from these earlier movements are tacitly recalled as the work intriguingly emerges full circle then tantalisingly recedes beyond earshot.

Rather than the unidiomatic Andante and Allegro as coupling, the Marmen opt for Bartók’s Fourth Quartet (1928), which makes sense given its influence on Ligeti. From the trenchantly cumulative take on its opening Allegro, this account passes through an airily tensile sordino Scherzo and slow movement graced by cellist Sinéad O’Halloran’s ruminative eloquence to an intricately playful ‘pizzicato’ Scherzo then propulsive finale that wrests a tangible cohesion.

Recordings of both Ligeti quartets are now numerous. Quatuor Diotima are as perceptive as any, and the Artemis Quartet wear their decades lightly. Cuarteto Casals combine an understatedly intense take on Ligeti’s First Quartet with a methodical Bartók alongside music by Kurtág, as do the Armida Quartet in readings as dynamic as any. Yet those attracted by this coupling need not hesitate, while further recordings from the Marmen can only be keenly anticipated.