The Nocturne and Tarantella is one of Syzmanowski’s most immediately attractive pieces in any medium, and it more than survives its transfer from violin and piano to string quartet here. As the ensemble that commissioned the highly effective transcription – by senior Ukrainian composer Miroslaw Skoryk – the Syzmanowski Quartet relishes every pungent effect.

The disc is themed around Paris, almost a second home to Szymanowski in the 1920s, and folk music. Ravel’s ethnomusicographic credentials are not as tenuous as one might imagine, though they are admittedly concentrated mainly on the Iberian peninsula. However, the point of the Basque elements in the finale of his String Quartet remains somewhat academic here, given that the performance as a whole is disappointing in terms of variety of colour and nuance.

Then there is Szymon Laks (1901-83), who studied in Paris on Szymanowski’s recommendation and who survived internment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, before composing his Third Quartet in 1945. By no means a complete unknown, he left memoirs entitled Music of Another World, published in 2000 (Northwestern University Press). Sadly the music turns out to be a good deal less interesting than the life. The Polish folk material is plain enough to hear and the scoring is effective enough. But the music lacks concentration and drama, and the indebtedness – and inferiority – of its Scherzo to that of Ravel’s Quartet is cruelly highlighted by the coupling. An excessively dry acoustic is another factor to weigh up in deciding whether to invest.