Britten’s music oddly became more alive in the 1970s, after a long period of increasing solemnity following the failure of Gloriana and the Snape Maltings fire in the late 1960s. His three numbered quartets (there were many much earlier ones, relegated to his ‘drawer of horrors’) conveniently bookend this difficult period and illustrate the coherence through his output that makes it easier to understand his contribution on a purely artistic scale. The pieces naturally suit the assertive tone of the Takács Quartet, who are skilfully able to maintain a thread of musical argument not only through each individual quartet but through the collection as a whole. The opening movement of the First Quartet is played in a way that turns the music into a work of real beauty at the same time as bringing out the fragmented melodies, which Britten gives to the listener piecemeal, with all the acidity of the subject in a Shostakovich symphony. Their bow changes are emphasised enough to feel the difference Britten intended there to be within the space of a single note, rather than it being all about effect: in separating the notes in that way they have created a structure and outline of the melody (apparent and hidden) that creates a greater musical sense. The last quartet, although resolutely refusing to be optimistic, still has an energy that belies the ill health from which Britten was suffering when he wrote it. Its passacaglia is the plainest playing on the disc, with the Takács leaving the music alone to make its own sad journey, and the listener unsure at the end whether to feel hope, or just hopeless.