These young musicians’ performances show that the centuries-old Czech tradition of superb instrumental playing is still flourishing. I particularly enjoyed the Smetana. It’s a work impelled by intense emotion and the performance here matches the composer’s heart-on-sleeve manner in its wholehearted, confident approach. Near the end of the finale, where the main theme is transformed into a dark, severe funeral march, the playing is truly memorable, while delicate, tender moments are just as well expressed as the forceful, dramatic ones. Ivo Kahánek’s beautifully played cadenza just before the first movement’s recapitulation is one example; another is the way the players catch the middle movement’s wistful atmosphere. Marked Allegro ma non agitato but sometimes played as a fast scherzo (by the Fontenay Trio, for instance), in this beautifully inflected performance it persuasively suggests Smetana’s fond, painful recollections of his lost four-year-old daughter.

The Dumky performance is just as fine, with a recording whose crisp immediacy helps to bring out the varied textures in which Dvořák delights. The excellent version by the Florestan Trio offers a more ample, resonant acoustic and interpretations that, in places, show more individuality. But the Dvořák Trio excel in robust, dance-like passages. In the fifth dumka, for instance, by holding the tempo firm, the rhythmic sections are given an earthy vigour that is surely entirely authentic. At the other end of Dvořák’s emotional scale, the sweet nostalgia of the third dumka is movingly projected, the players relying on tone, dynamics and shading to make their effect.