This pairing of the C minor Quartet and Piano Quintet comes a couple of years after the Brodsky’s first disc of Brahms for Chandos, an altogether more mellow coupling of the Second Quartet and the Clarinet Quintet. And immediately one gets the feeling that some of that mellowness remains: these are performances that are not afraid to relax, which don’t insist on maintaining a constant tension to keep the pieces taut and together.

There’s an almost tentative quality to the opening of the quartet (certainly compared to the big-boned statements of, say, the Artemis Quartet on their recent disc) and arguably some will miss the assertiveness of the German quartet, or even of the Ebène on their identical coupling; the Brodskys, following first violin Daniel Rowland’s lead, often favour a nervous swell-and-contract expressiveness instead of those ensembles’ broader, more confident lyrical flow.

As such, although there are plenty of lovely details in the outer movements, where the playing is never less than intelligent and instinctive, I miss a sense of powerful forward thrust, a feeling emphasised by the occasional tendency to drop down a notch in tempo. The Romanze, however, receives an exquisite performance (listen to the way Rowland soars up his phrase at 2'26" for a taster of the bittersweet lyricism he and his colleagues achieve); and though others offer a greater sense of tension in the Allegretto, the Brodsky’s more muted approach is effective there, too.

The playing in the Quintet is similar and matched well by that of Natacha Kudritskaya, who plays very much as part of the team, even to the point of seeming a touch anonymous and unassertive. It’s an approach that makes a fascinating contrast to more conventionally forceful and richly drawn accounts. Admittedly I miss the full sound of, say, Andsnes and the Artemis or Akiko Yamamoto with the Ebène (not to mention the austere forcefulness of Pollini and the Quartetto Italiano), in the driven passages of the Scherzo, for example, or in that lovely burst of lyricism in the Andante, which feels underplayed here (tr 6, at 7'20"). But there are benefits in the more reflective passages, in the touching phrasing and the details that emerge in the texture.

Kudritskaya’s Steinway sounds a little constricted in tone, despite the clear and realistic engineering. But the observance of dynamics is unusually accurate throughout, and the group certainly capture both works’ moments of nervous tension well.