James Ehnes has released more than 30 discs since 2000, making a major mark in significant swathes of the concerto repertoire including the Elgar, the two Bartóks and Prokofievs, the Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Barber, Dvořák and the three Bruchs. There has been no Brahms as yet, no Beethoven, no Sibelius, no Shostakovich No 2, and it will be fascinating to hear what he has to say about those when and if the time comes, because his recorded legacy so far testifies to a remarkable, penetrating and communicative talent.

That talent is certainly manifest again here in Khachaturian’s Concerto. The playing is lissom, spicy and lyrically luminous, complemented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s lithe rhythms and seductive colouring under Mark Wigglesworth. The Khachaturian of Spartacus and Gayaneh surfaces in the throbbing climaxes of the slow central movement, but this is a performance that abides by musical perspective while bringing a terrific sense of character to Khachaturian’s mix of exoticism and verve.

If Ehnes as soloist is no stranger to the catalogue, the Ehnes Quartet, formed as recently as 2010, here appears for the first time on disc in two of Shostakovich’s string quartets. If these make slightly odd bedfellows with the open-hearted exuberance of the Khachaturian Concerto, the Ehnes Quartet has full measure of the music’s essential intimacy and pensive atmosphere, bringing also a sharply defined virtuosity to the nervy counterpoint and jarring dissonance in the Seventh Quartet’s finale and intense concentration coupled with arresting spontaneity to the narrative of the Eighth.