Michael Nyman made his reputation with pieces that mesmerised with their vigour and precision, with the way their simple constituent parts were riveted into a complex whole. Their bravura construction and glittering surfaces seemed ideally suited to accompany the ever-so-clever but heartless charades of Peter Greenaway, and through a kind of guilt by association Nyman’s work began to seem increasingly calculated and unemotional.

In 1989, though, he wrote the music for a BBC television documentary by Agnieszka Piotrowska about the aftermath of the earthquake in Armenia. From this score grew the fine choral composition Out of the Ruins, later converted into the Third string quartet. Nyman’s trademark constructional techniques are still prominent, but there is also genuine sentiment and unostentatious compassion. It is this side of his work that this CD highlights.

There are, though, examples of the more flamboyant style, too. While I missed the brilliant sound of brass and reeds in this transcription of In Re Don Giovanni, the Second Quartet, designed originally for a dance piece by Shobana Jeyasingh, effectively evokes the agility and control of the dancers.

Recently reissued on Decca, the 1991 Balanescu Quartet recordings of the first three quartets must remain the benchmark versions, with their tighter ensemble sound and more fluid rhythmic attack, but these performances match them in the way they bring out, appropriately enough, the lyrical aspects of Nyman’s writing. The Lyric make an especially good showing in the five selected movements from the Fourth Quartet, the Miserere, and the Third Quartet, where there is some moving viola playing.