The north German composer Emilie Mayer seems to have turned to chamber music in Berlin in the mid-1850s, largely – so it’s suggested in the booklet notes to this new recording from the Constanze Quartet – out of frustration at the neglect of her symphonies and orchestral music. Certainly, the three quartets here are audibly the work of a highly experienced composer in full command of her own compositional voice, which assimilates elements of Schumann, Beethoven and (above all) Mendelssohn into something wholly distinctive.

A (necessarily uninformed) guess would suggest that these three works are recorded in chronological order, moving from the genial lyricism of the G major to the inwardness and warmth of the A major work, with its poised, Mozart-like slow movement. Coming after its predecessors, the E minor Quartet is like a storm unleashed, with a torrential finale that evokes the restless energy of late Schubert. But all three works are striking, with Mayer’s voice powering through most forcefully in the three scherzos, whose harmonic pungency and rhythmic drive prefigure Bruckner.

The Constanze Quartet sound as if they’ve lived with this music. Fast tempos are taut and propulsive, and there’s a natural, expressive ebb and flow to the slow movements. Inner voices are nicely layered and leader Emeline Pierre Larsen tackles the (often virtuoso) top line with resolve and a gleaming tone. Frustratingly, the acoustic can best be described as ‘swimming pool’: big and boomy in works which (certainly in the quieter moments) cry out for an intimacy that’s largely absent, and the booklet notes, too, are weighed down with badly translated analytical gobbledegook. Happily, the music more than speaks for itself.