With this live set, captured last March in Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw (not to be confused with the venerable Concertgebouw), the Brodsky becomes the first Western string quartet to have released more than one Shostakovich cycle on disc. Famous for pioneering crossover projects and with a propensity for performing from a standing position, the ensemble was unusual in championing the Russian-Soviet master well before his expedient ideological realignment, in some cases even before the general availability of printed material. Viola player Paul Cassidy, who provides a reflective essay for the booklet, remembers how the teenage musicians would tape performances off-air, writing out their own parts by listening to the recording over and over again. The Eleventh was one of the first pieces they played publicly in 1972. Growing up as the later quartets were being written and premiered, they were too young to enjoy a direct artistic relationship with the composer, so it meant a great deal to them that, on one memorable occasion in Bologna, they were able to perform the Ninth in the presence of his widow, Irina. Complete Shostakovich cycles have been a central feature of the quartet’s schedule ever since, latterly presented in concentrated weekend bursts.

The sound of the group and its attitude to these scores has not remained static. Two Brodsky stalwarts have departed since the old Teldec recording. Something else has changed, too, in that the competition is much fiercer today. Set against the fabulously integrated sonority of the Borodin Quartet and the heartfelt homegrown advocacy of the Fitzwilliam, the Brodsky’s original studio-made series felt distinctly ‘contemporary’. That impression (only partly attributable to the drier sound of what was the first such sequence to be digitally encoded throughout) was also the product of a certain detachment and self-consciousness of approach. Nuances were applied sparingly and knowingly, as if from outside the music, to define a mood. The sharp rhythmic clarity commanded respect rather than love. Today we’ve had the turbocharged perfectionism of the Emerson Quartet, the Gallic wit and finesse of the Quatuor Danel, the contextual programming of the Pacifica Quartet – ‘adding variety and perspective to the listening experience’ – and so many more.

Decades of concert-giving have encouraged a freer, more robust Brodsky style that admits extra grit and pressurises the busy, quasi-symphonic rhetoric of Shostakovich’s more conventional scores. The Fifth is too edgy and shrieky for me, the Ninth’s finale again frenzied and nervous, to an extent that might have been rejected in a studio take. The newly spacious Eighth brings other doubts: it feels studied, the detail intrusive. That Daniel Rowland, a fan of the quartet before he actually joined, is an intensely committed leader is confirmed early on by his soloistic contributions to the Second Quartet. The acoustic setting would seem ideal yet his vibrato can acquire a febrile quality at high decibels and the whole ensemble at times takes on a rather lean, brittle quality, lacking the mellifluous blend associated with the Borodin line-ups of yesteryear. There are of course many ways to project the music’s balance of intimacy and power. Witness the more direct, less perfect playing of the Beethoven Quartet, for whom the scores were actually written.

In Shostakovich’s most cryptic, pared-down late utterances the argument is given unprecedented room to breathe. But then the present players have always made a point of taking the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Quartets slower than anyone else, the latter’s six adagios wearier than they seem in rival accounts. Sceptics as well as aficionados will find this doleful, emphatic rendition a remarkable take on what can only be construed as a meditation on death. There is, however, a school of thought that favours a more wistful, less zombie-like manner. The First Quartet, again quite measured, is made to seem less than usually peripheral to the weightier discourse to come. This is not to say that the musicians make heavy weather of it. As always, authenticity is in the ear of the listener.

For those still wedded to physical format, Chandos’s presentation has a certain logic on its side. The 15 quartets are offered in chronological order, shorn of makeweights. The decision has been made to eliminate applause without editing the life out of the music-making.