Over the past few years an impressive repertoire of recorded performances from the Heimbach Festival have appeared. The concerts take place in a hydro- electric power station, but if this suggests an over-resonant acoustic, that’s not apparent here; if anything the sound, though well-balanced, is somewhat dry, and the grander parts of the Brahms, the start of the finale, for instance, could have benefited from a more ringing sonority.

In such passages, I wondered whether Vogt, in his keenness not to over-pedal, wasn’t risking the opposite fault of sounding too clinically clear. But in general he and his three distinguished colleagues project both the work’s prevailing lyricism and more tempest- uous episodes like the Scherzo’s trio section.

The Mendelssohn is, I think, even more successful. There is fire and intensity in the outer movements, plus a thrilling momentum that thoroughly vindicates the finale, which can appear as one of the composer’s less inspired pieces. It’s very exciting to hear Mendelssohn’s brilliant writing for the two violins performed with such virtuosity.

The Adagio is wonderfully atmospheric, its Romantic gloom all the stronger because the preceding Andante scherzando is taken faster than usual. The Raphael Ensemble create more of a nocturnal impression in the Andante, and give greater emphasis to the first move- ment’s cantabile elements. But this account has its own view of the Quintet, presented so strongly and consistently as to make one wonder why it isn’t one of Mendelssohn’s most popular pieces.