When Andrew Farach-Colton reviewed Joseph Phibbs’s First String Quartet (2014) – also recorded by the Piatti Quartet (Champs Hill, 11/18) – he praised its ‘compelling narrative trajectory’ and ‘harmonic and colouristic subtleties’. These same qualities persist throughout the three successor quartets gathered here, indeed are the cornerstones of Phibbs’s approach to the medium. Consequently, there is less instrumental dialogue, so prominent a feature of the Classical form – or later exemplars such as Holmboe, Shostakovich and Simpson (to pluck three names not entirely at random) – though it does occur, as in the spiky Molto allegro second movement of Quartet No 2 (2015). A species of fugue, the thematic material has an engaging Bartókian contour, making for a lively instrumental discussion, similarly in the Corrente fourth movement of No 3 (2018, rev 2021) and the Burlesque of No 4, composed earlier this year and recorded with the ink barely dry.

There is, nonetheless, a feeling of community in the way Phibbs’s quartets unfold: take No 2’s opening Presto, a (mostly) quicksilver nocturne where the four instruments combine to generate precisely imagined textures. The Chitarra interlude’s Spanish-style strumming has real verve as the pace rapidly accelerates to a brief climax before a hushed, static close; the Piatti Quartet – who play superbly throughout with wonderful warmth of tone and precision – are particularly fine in the juxtaposition of fast pizzicatos and languorous arco. The quartet’s heart is the initially serene Lento affettuoso finale, though its determined conclusion is not quite the ‘blaze of light’ of the composer’s description.

The five-movement Third is partly a memorial to Phibbs’s teacher and mentor Steven Stucky (1949-2016), especially the emotionally complex opening Adagio-Allegro-Adagio, but the finale is a tribute to Krzysztof Chorzelski, viola player of the Belcea Quartet, for whom the quartet was written. The intervening helter-skelter Presto (fugato), Notturno-Fantasia (another evocative nocturnal cityscape and a fine example of the essential Phibbs quartet movement) and Corrente fill out a splendidly structured work that makes a terrific impact overall. So, too, No 4, at time of writing a week away from its public premiere, with its appealing sequence of tone pictures: Film Sequence – Notturno – Cantilena – Burlesque – Passacaglia. Excellent music, superbly played and produced.