I have a friend who cannot abide ‘late’ Beethoven and I’d hazard a guess that the five-movement Quartet in A minor, Op 132, with its worldly shy ‘Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode’ slow movement would typify, for him, the elevated sense of disorientation that makes breathing while listening so difficult. In a sense the Ehnes Quartet offset that sublime discomfort by holding to a moderate pace (for the modal F that opens the movement) and avoiding dynamic extremes, so when the birdlike but prayerful Neue Kraft fühlend (‘feeling new strength’) passage in D arrives, a sense of musical inevitability overrides any implied religious undercurrent. Turn then to the more broadly paced Quatuor Ébène and the spiritual element is turned full on, or seems to be, not only through their harmonium-like pooled tone but because of the longer time span between the two sections (4'32" as opposed to 3'39").

In the first movement the Ehnes project a fuller body of tone with long-breathed phrases and strong sforzatos, and here too Quatuor Ébène are fully up to the challenge, their sound more dynamically graded. With them the Allegro ma non tanto’s central drone-like Trio retains both its charm and its ability to surprise. Beyond the slow movement both ensembles make a beeline for the violin cadenza that leads into the passionately driven finale, though neither can quite eclipse memories in this passage of Adolf Busch, whose crazed playing almost exceeds the limits of decency. The Busch have to be heard, and forget about their great age (worn well, I might add). The Ehnes Quartet offer a warm, solidly played interpretation which, although hardly the ultimate in terms of audaciousness, gives a fine account of Beethoven and of themselves. In Op 135, again the two versions of the slow movement find Quatuor Ébène opting for greater breadth, though both quartets capture the Scherzo’s snappiness and the finale’s ambiguous asides with understanding. If ultimately I would opt for the more subtly expressive Quatuor Ébène in both works, listening to the consistently satisfying Ehnes Quartet has afforded me considerable pleasure and the engineering is first-rate. Certainly those readers who are collecting their series of the quartets can invest with confidence – and I may well pass a copy to my ‘late-Beethoven-shy’ friend. It may well win him over.