It’s good to have a reading of Schubert’s Octet which explores it via the pungency of period instruments. The very opening chord is lent a particular dark hue (which isn’t just a matter of pitch) and the subsequent dialogue between wind and strings has a greater intimacy than in the Nash’s fine version. The arrival of the Allegro after the first movement’s slow introduction has a particular agility in this new reading, which has less to do with speed than the leanness of timbre. In the Adagio they take a more flowing tempo than the Nash, to great effect, Northernlight’s clarinettist Nicola Boud giving the Gaudier’s Richard Hosford a run for his money in sheer poetry. The darting Scherzo is another delight, all three wind instruments giving it a truly rustic edge, while in the finale the group contrasts drama and fizzing ebullience with a real twinkle in the eye, the chattering interplay between the instruments full of personality. And, once again, the pacing is spot on.

The Edding Quartet go it alone in the Quartettsatz. Their opening phrases are meticulously articulated and they’re less pressed than some in their speed, giving the first violin theme instead a kind of lolloping quality. What I miss here, however, is an edge of hysteria, something the Takács convey unflinchingly, be it in the leader’s shaping of that same theme or the barely contained violence of the cello at just past the minute mark. The Edding perhaps put more emphasis on the fragile beauty of the piece but as a whole they leave less of an impression than the Takács and the febrile Belcea.