Two composers in particular spring out as influences on these two very different quintets: Schumann in Op 1, most specifically in the Scherzo, at 1'59", where there are unmistakable echoes of the Lied ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’, and the song-like cello opening of the Adagio, which recalls the musical and emotional climate of Schumann’s Piano Quartet. As assured as this enjoyable work is, you sometimes sense that Dohnányi is parading his academic credentials for the sake of his teachers and peers, the fugato at 2'29" into the finale for example, which nonetheless soon starts to dance.

How different the fugal opening of Op 26’s expansive finale, which seems to have absorbed Beethoven’s Quartet Op 131, or aspects of it, though the predominant influence in this later – and musically superior – work is Brahms, the Intermezzo second movement being the most obvious case in point, its mood, melodic drift and contrapuntally flavoured piano-writing, not to mention the alternation of slow and fast episodes, though the very individual colouring later on is very much Dóhnanyi’s own.

This particular coupling, which was recorded in Toronto back in May 2007 and features performances that are astutely musical and very well executed, is about as good as it gets, in spite of some strong competition, especially from Martin Roscoe and the Vanbrugh Quartet (ASV). In the First Quintet there’s a fine alternative by the Takács Quartet with András Schiff (Decca), which regrettably suffers from a rather over-resonant recording, while in the Second Erno˝ Szegedi with the Tátrai Quartet (Hungaroton) is less fluent than either Wallisch with the Enso¯ String Quartet or Roscoe and the Vanbrughs. Lydia Artymiw and the Audubon Quartet (Centaur, again with both Quintets coupled) effectively capture the First Quintet’s stormy spirit, though the balance between piano and strings on this new disc is better. Which, given the modest price point and all-round musical excellence, more or less suggests a top recommendation for the CD under review.