The late quartets must form a crucial part of any complete recording of the Beethoven quartets, so this third disc in the Borodins’ set has particular interest. The playing is certainly very fine; there’s a rare unanimity of tone and style, and the group excels in lyrical music. The cantabile episodes in Op 95 are freely expressive but never indulgent, an effect enhanced by the warmth and clarity of the recording.

The Borodins’ concern for mellifluous tone leads them to turn away from some traditional aspects of Beethoven performance. The opening Allegro of Op 95 is generally presented as a brusque piece, fierce in its sudden changes of mood and direction. But this version adds a whole minute to the four-minute timing of, say, the recent Lindsays recording; Beethoven’s powerful, dramatic design is clearly communicated, but the earnestness and high passion of this ‘Quartetto serioso’ becomes something more heavy and solemn.

A similar alteration of character affects Op 95’s Scherzo and the finale of Op 131. The Op 131 Scherzo is taken at a suitably fast tempo, but the dynamic contrasts are underplayed, and the music loses something of its edgy, manic quality. And in Op 131’s opening movement, the tempo is unusually fast – Adagio ma non troppo, yes, but missing the serenity that the best versions, from Busch onwards, give us. Elsewhere in Op 131, the playing carries all before it – in the morning brightness of the little Allegro that succeeds the opening fugue, and the melancholy Adagio that leads into the finale. The performance of the Grosse Fuge, too, is outstanding. The first fugal section has a granite-like quality; the tone is never forced and the amazing dissonances sound all the more striking because we hear them so clearly.

If the other late quartets match this account of Op 133, the Borodins could become a top recommendation.