For all its imposing dimensions and grandiose final apotheosis, there is something fundamentally intimate about the Tchaikovsky Trio. As such it demands both larger-than-life technical accomplishment and the chamber musician’s instinct for sharing rather than grandstanding. That, at least, is the message that comes from this startlingly fine new disc. The David Trio has garnered a number of prizes and residencies since its foundation in 2004 but it was a new name to me. Without going in for extreme tempi or displays of temperament, the players get far deeper beneath the surface of the Tchaikovsky than most of their rivals on disc. Maybe some will find that individuality is accompanied by an exaggeratedly halting quality, and effective balance by some dryness and emaciation in the piano’s textures. But the gains in terms of individuality of voice and in sheer clarity are real, and throughout there is a quality of sympathetic warmth so essential to Tchaikovsky that it comes as a shock to realise how few manage to nail it. In the second movement there is some heavy punctuation of phrases and fussy emphasis on subsidiary voices in the theme and some of the earlier variations. Even so, the level of idiomatic insight is high enough that it would take the length of several reviews to do justice to it. In short, this goes close to the top of my favourite recordings of the piece, alongside the superbly efficient Bronfman, Lin and Hoffman, not far short of the irresistibly fiery Argerich, Kremer and Maisky, and – unrivalled for inspiration and abandon – the live Barenboim, Zuckerman and Du Pré.

The Shostakovich, too, is a fine achievement. Shifts of tempo and character that others negotiate only with uneasy compromise are here completely convincing. Obvious surface excitement gives place to a grasp of archetypal depths that demand restraint and wisdom as much as they do temperament. Most impressive of all is the matching of tone-colour to mood, so that the fragility of the opening phrases and the stoicism of the Passacaglia are captured with rare precision. The end of the scherzo could have done with a retake to eliminate a stray resonance that gives an unwanted minor-mode colour. And at the climax of the finale I do regret the over-riding of the score for what should be the muted return of the first movement theme. But so many ensembles take this option that I may have to give up complaining about it, and overall the balance-sheet is overwhelmingly positive.