This album comes from a pair of live recitals given at Alice Tully Hall in March. The three piano quartets are separated by a mere 34 years, the last of them the work of the teenage Mahler. The opening movement is the only one to survive complete and it shows that the composer had already taken on board the chamber music of Schumann and Brahms. The Maisky family gave a very heart-on-sleeve account at Martha Argerich’s 2012 Lugano festival. This new one is less openly sobbing at the outset, but that’s not to imply any lack of intensity, and the balance between the players is more egalitarian. Hope & Co also reveal a welcome lighter touch in the climax just after the six-minute mark.

The competition hots up in the remaining works. While the quality of these four players as chamber musicians is in no doubt, we occasionally find immediacy over finesse (in the finale of the Schumann, for instance, where Melnikov and the Jerusalem Quartet possess both drive and finish). The slow movement is one of the best things here, full-toned where needs be – as in the glorious theme itself, where David Finckel is more soulful than the Jerusalem’s Kyril Zlotnikov, though less refulgent than Gautier Capuçon on Virgin. However, put anyone alongside Argerich in the Scherzo and they seem sluggish and a touch earthbound, though the Trio section is very engaging.

There is much to admire in the Brahms, above all perhaps in the Intermezzo, with its fined-down string shadings, and the voluptuous warmth of the outer sections of the Andante. The finale is taken a degree faster by Hamelin and the Leopold Trio, and alongside the Canadian pianist’s exuberant way with the virtuoso gypsy passages Wu Han sounds a little more cautious. Compared to the youthful vigour conveyed on the Hyperion disc, this new one sounds just a little portly.