It was a happy idea to couple teacher and pupil in these first releases of the Sixth String Quartet by Charles Wood, best known for his numerous settings of the English rite, with the earlier version of Howells’s quartet In Gloucestershire, the two versions sharing the same scherzo. If the 1923 composition doesn’t quite probe the deeply personal world of the later work, where the slow movement is considered by some an elegy for the loss of his son at this time, the abundance of natural lyricism and contrapuntal brilliance within – astutely realised in this sensitive performance by the London Chamber Ensemble – affirms this earlier take as no less a valid composition.

In the first movement, I love the way Madeleine Mitchell and her colleagues let the music unfold in a natural manner, as though they were treading the very contours of Howell’s beloved landscape at Chosen. The high tessitura for first violin, notably in the commanding climax of the first movement, holds no bars for the leader, who, alongside her players, so fervently projects the ecstatic elasticity embedded in the music. The brisk second movement, less febrile in mood than the Britten Quartet in their EMI recording of many years standing (now on Warner, 4/97), is very much in keeping with the al fresco nature of the music, as is the balance of the recording. The playing of the rapt slow movement, the farewell finely drawn, is perfection. What a contrast to the whirling dervish of the finale punctuated by strong pizzicato chords, thrillingly realised in this dynamic performance.

Wood’s Irish background informs his last string quartet, whether it be in the playful pizzicatos in the Irish reel of the second movement or the boisterous conclusion, ending with a ‘hop jig’. The Adagio, a set of intimate variations on an Irish theme, is written from the heart, though I would quibble with the booklet authors’ description of the theme as ‘synthetic’ – a term more appropriate to those ballads from the turn of the 19th century recorded by many a tenor of that era. Two short pieces arranged by Mitchell for string quartet link the two quartets, the ‘“Chosen” Tune’ having been played by Thalben-Hall at the wedding of Howells to the singer Dorothy Dawe; the Gloucestershire connection extends to Harold Gilman’s painting In Gloucestershire on the album cover. ‘Luchinushka’, a lament based on an old Russian folk tune, holds a personal link for Mitchell, who gave the first performance in St Petersburg in 2009.