Schoenberg gives the first melodic phrase of Brahms’s G minor Piano Quartet to three clarinets (the common instrument in B flat, plus a bass clarinet and its higher cousin in E flat), creating an over-saturated tone colour that’s distinctly Schoenbergian – it’s as if he wanted his imprint stamped firmly on the arrangement from the very start. Jaime Martín revels in these marvellously lurid sonorities, pushing the woodwinds to the fore, and generally eliciting incisive, articulate playing from the Gävle orchestra. String tone can be wan at times – I’d prefer the expansive melody in the cellos at 1'48" in the first movement to be sung more richly, for instance – and particularly when considered alongside Rattle’s opulently appointed account with the Berlin Philharmonic (EMI, 10/11).

Martín’s tempos are wholly convincing throughout. He paces the opening Allegro far more broadly than Schoenberg’s (not Brahms’s) crotchet=132 metronome mark but still maintains a flowing pace. Indeed, the sense of inexorable forward movement is consistent. Perhaps the Rondo alla zingarese finale is more of an allegro than the marked presto, but it still generates plenty of excitement thanks to rhythmic tautness and generous dollops of peppery accents. I do wish more care had been given to dynamic contrasts in the third movement, but it’s so passionately played that such minor cavils are easily overlooked.

Parry’s Elegy for Brahms is an unexpected yet apt coupling, and I believe this to be the finest recorded interpretation thus far. Martín stakes a middle ground between the almost desperate urgency of Boult’s pioneering version (EMI, 11/79) and the plaintive nobility of Bamert’s (Chandos, 9/91). In the exquisite final pages (starting around 9'58"), the elegiac radiance of the orchestra’s performance feels positively transfigurative.