‘Green’ is the final volume in a three-disc series by the Amaryllis Quartet that combines contemporary works for string quartet with mainstream Romantic repertoire. That’s not to say that their Romantic choices have been slipshod or catchpenny, and this final pairing of Schumann and Kurtág is as much about similarity of effect as it is about pure contrast. The tuning and balance in every piece on this disc is absolutely faultless, and it is this one fact that launches an interesting programming idea into a whole other world of mien and conclusion.

To mention the fact that the opening of the first movement of the first of the A minor string quartets of Schumann may be too swelling for some ears (as opposed to the harmonic wasteland it is commonly accepted to be) is therefore less a criticism than a minor frustration, simply because it misses an opportunity to lay even more bare the contrasts on this recording. That is, both the varying styles of the music and the ability of the quartet itself to paint staggeringly different pictures appear here as a virtuous combination which, despite the Kurtág coming from a late 1980s period where brash rhythm and melody were perhaps a little too fashionable, make this a set of truly special performances.