The Fine Arts Quartet, founded back in 1946, is one of those ensembles that keeps its name while the players change. The current line-up features two longstanding violinists together with a viola player and cellist who both arrived in 2018.

Dvořák’s Fourth Quartet dates from his late twenties, when he was still finding his compositional style, and the three movements run without a break. While there’s plenty of impetus from the off, that comes at a cost of some imprecise tuning, particularly from the leader, and at times I wanted the accompanying lines to be less prominent, something the Panocha Quartet do with much more ease. The moving Andante religioso flows more naturally in the hands of the Panocha: the Fine Arts are much slower, as if aiming for the transcendence of late Beethoven, and phrases sag dangerously. The driving final movement is convincing tempo-wise but individual contributions can be a touch effortful, and again the balance is sometimes a little off, which can result in opaque textures.

Dvořák wrote his A major String Sextet shortly after the hugely successful Slavonic Dances, Op 46, and they breathe the same bucolic air. This reading sets off with a spring in its step and there’s plenty of enthusiasm from the players, but turn to the Jerusalem Quartet plus their distinguished additional viola and cello and you’re in a warmer, more genial world. The second-movement Dumka in this new set is well paced but the tenutos that Dvořák uses to underline the main beats of the bar are slightly jabby in effect; however, their Furiant, which has an unbuttoned enthusiasm and earthy vigour, works well, with the Trio offering a lyrical interlude. The main theme of the variation-form finale offers the first viola its moment in the sun, imaginatively supported by viola 2 and the two cellos, but this reading doesn’t compare with the warmth of the Harmonia Mundi set. And so it continues, from some slightly metallic tone as the two violins join the mix in Var 1, or Var 3 in which the first cello sounds a little reined in, through to the final Allegro, where the Jerusalem and co combine nimble-fingered ebullience compared to which the Fine Arts sound overly heavy-handed.

The Polonaise for cello and piano (or orchestra) is nearly contemporary with the Sextet and demands from the cello an easy agility and a singing quality. Unfortunately the Fine Arts’ Niklas Schmidt and pianist Stepan Simonian can’t rival Christian Poltéra and Kathryn Stott or Heinrich Schiff and Elisabeth Leonskaja in terms of eloquence coupled with a nobility that grows from the dance genre itself.