If you believe the whole point of the Suite to be that it masks its own true significance, using overt connections with dedicatee Alexander von Zemlinsky and his Lyric Symphony (briefly quoted in the fourth movement) as a smokescreen, then you won’t approve of this recording, which offers only the vocal version – found in a score marked up by Berg but never published – and does not include the purely instrumental text as an alternative. I certainly wouldn’t argue for the vocal version as a permanent replacement for that instrumental text: if Berg had intended a performable vocal setting he would surely not have had the vocal line doubled throughout by one or other of the instruments. But in a performance of the whole work as richly characterised and technically assured as this one by the Quatuor Diotima, I’m happy to make an exception.

The quartets by Webern and Schoenberg are done with equal flair, and in Schoenberg’s Second there’s a rare opportunity to hear the peerless Sandrine Piau in post-Wagnerian vein, projecting the Kundry-like agonies and ecstasies of the work’s last two movements with formidable conviction. The closely focused quality of the recorded sound seems right for the claustrophobic atmosphere that links all three compositions and helps to ensure that this supremely dramatic music – even in the case of Webern’s tiny, barely audible Bagatelles – comes to life with startling immediacy.