Here is a disc promoted by the Spanish arm of Harmonia Mundi, designed to link the work of Ravel with two Catalan composers, Eduardo Toldrá and Joaquín Turina. The players are the greatly talented young Cuarteto Casals, winners of the first prize in the 2000 London International Quartet Competition. They give a sparkling account of the Ravel Quartet, covering a wide expressive range from the bite of the Scherzo to the meditative depth of the slow movement.

Vistas al mar (“View of the Sea”) is Toldrá’s 1921 quartet, inspired by three poems of the Catalan writer Joan Maragall. The composer originally wanted each movement prefaced by a reading of the poem which inspired it, a device adopted on this disc. Though there are several recordings of the composer’s orchestration for strings, this is unique in offering his first thoughts, which arguably work better in such an idiomatic performance as this.

La oración del torero (“The Bullfighter’s Prayer”), a warmly lyrical piece that nicely completes this unusual programme, may be one of Turina’s better known works but it has latterly been neglected on disc. All three works are very well recorded by Harmonia Mundi.