A really meaty coupling, this. Erno˝ Dohnányi’s C major Sextet, a product of the mid-1930s, covers an extremely wide range of moods and skilfully exploits the expressive potential of all six instruments. The opening Allegro appassionato sets out over rolling cello arpeggios and presents its arguments with rigour and clarity. This is genuine creative craftsmanship, and just as apparent at the misty start of the Intermezzo second movement, music that with its eerie feelings of suspense recalls the world of late Brahms. The third movement is a gentle Allegro with a centre-placed scherzo episode (echoes there of Brahms’s Horn Trio) and some heart-warming writing for strings. But the happiest moment is when this con sentimento third movement suddenly swings into the offbeat giocoso finale, music once heard never forgotten. It’s a real joy and the Ensemble Kheops are fully on a par with my fine old ASV CD with the Endymion Ensemble (with Fibich’s Op 42 Quintet: 2/96 – nla), maybe just a tad more winning in the finale’s kitschy waltz-time passages.

Penderecki’s Sextet (premiered in 2000) is a tougher listen, though not half as tough as it might have been had he written it in the 1970s or thereabouts, when the composer’s style was more uncompromisingly experimental. Although apparently difficult to play, the music isn’t as forbidding as you might expect. Echoes of Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Shostakovich and (to my ears) Weill abound, the opening march-like figure leading on to motor-driven virtuoso writing and some fierce rhythms (odd stopped notes on the horn are like wasp-stings bothering the texture). This teeming invention spills over into the 20-minute second movement, where the mood eventually settles to something far quieter and darker, though the extraordinarily beautiful closing moments offer a semblance of light, rather like the end of Bartók’s last quartet does. As for the Ensemble Kheops, no praise could be too high: unbelievably, they sound as if they were born to play both works. They’re not only technically superb but wholly convincing interpreters, and the crystal-clear recorded sound matches their playing in its excellence.