It seems incredible to think that Tchaikovsky’s string quartets were once viewed as insufficiently Russian; but according to Cobbett, when the First Quartet went into its second edition in 1875, the publisher Jurgensen discovered that of the entire first print run, only 11 copies had been sold in Russia itself. Today we smile; but the question raised by this new cycle from the French-based Quatuor Danel is how far we still expect, or need, our Tchaikovsky to be performed in a traditionally ‘Russian’ idiom. You know the sort of thing: impassioned playing with rich full-cream vibrato and an uninhibited willingness to take tempos – and expression – to extremes. The old Borodin Quartet approach, basically.

Because the first thing that strikes you about the Quatuor Danel, as they lean into the opening chant of the First Quartet, is the slimness and transparency of the sound – vibrato applied very sparingly – and the almost forensic way with which they articulate the development section. Vegan Tchaikovsky? Well, not entirely, though it’s certainly a striking approach. But it doesn’t preclude playing of intense care and poetry in the Andante cantabile – Marc Danel positively caresses the melody that made Tolstoy weep – or a spirited Cossack kick to the Scherzo and finale.

In some ways, this slimline approach to the First Quartet is atypical of the cycle as a whole. CPO’s recorded sound accommodates both whispered intimacy and sonorous, ringing climaxes; and in a spiky, uncompromising reading of the Second Quartet, the Danels use that to full advantage. They turn up the emotional heat to a sometimes ferocious degree: five minutes into the Andante, I felt they’d almost peaked too early. The upper strings of Marc Danel’s violin make a harsh sound under pressure, and this wasn’t the only place in the set where the tone quality and the unyielding rhythmic tension felt hectoring.

Still, I’d argue that’s a price worth paying for a muscular, symphonic performance of the Third Quartet in which the anguished expression of the opening bars finds a devastating pay-off in the first movement’s slow, melancholy retreat into silence, and where the swaggering ceremonial grandeur of the third-movement Andante funebre melts into sighing, heartfelt portamentos. That’s the fascination of these performances. Though this is very much a 21st-century approach to Tchaikovsky, the Danels don’t hesitate to wear their hearts on their sleeves – just not always, perhaps, in the exact places where convention might lead you to expect it.

A fascinating set, then, coupled to a Souvenir de Florence of supercharged verve and almost orchestral lushness. Very much worth hearing, though the booklet notes would probably make more sense if you’re drunk.