Meta4 connect well with Bartók’s sense of humour. Take the meaningful glissandos from 3'43" into the fifth movement of the Fifth Quartet, the way they deal with pauses…really makes you smile. Elsewhere, although one feels the intentions are right, execution is too often fuzzy and what should sound rhythmically secure doesn’t. At around 3'21" into the Fifth’s first movement there’s a momentary slip (a nasty edit perhaps?) that would drive me bonkers on repetition; and a slight sense of being fazed leads to discomfort, the last thing you want in works where ensemble needs to be as tight as a drum. The mirror-image Adagio molto second movement and Andante fourth are better done but in the jazzy Scherzo that falls between them inbuilt rhythmic ambiguities sound more ‘ambiguous’ than they should.

The more Romantic First Quartet is lovingly indulged, occasionally with cosseting portamentos, certainly in the first movement; and while elsewhere tempi are well chosen and there is some nicely judged playing, the quartet’s closing pages seem to take an age to make an exit. The overall impression, performance-wise (and I mean this with a maximum of respect, even encouragement), is of works in progress. Given an extra year or two, with bolts tightened and better-focused interpretative ideas, I think Meta4 would elevate their view of Bartók to another plane. But as things stand, there’s no viable contest with the Hagens, Juilliards (three times recorded), Véghs (twice), Takács (twice), Lindsays, Emersons or Alban Bergs.