Zemlinsky is one of those composers of not quite the first rank whose reputation continues to be overshadowed by his more illustrious contemporaries, although Schoenberg acknowledged his older friend as a forward-looking composer for the theatre; Berg (to whom he was perhaps closest) dedicated the Lyric Suite to him and quoted Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in it; and Webern paid tribute to the chamber music in particular, the domain in which all these free-thinking spirits felt challenged to prove their allegiance to tradition from time to time.

Webern characterised the evolution of Zemlinsky’s four quartets by giving an epithet to each: No 1 was ‘Departure’ (in the sense of a moving away from Brahms’s influence); No 2 ‘The Turning Point’ (Wende); and No 4 ‘Mask Game’ (Maskenspiel). No 4, completed in 1936, was a ‘tombeau’ for the recently departed Berg; unpublished and unperformed until 1967, a quarter of a century after Zemlinsky’s death, one wonders again at the indifference Vienna has so often displayed towards her distinguished sons. It was the LaSalle Quartet who took it up and this excellent namesake ensemble studied with their leader, Walter Levin.

The other two numbered Quartets came out on Praga Digitals nearly five years ago (12/07). If you enjoy swimming in these waters you’ll probably be glad to have both discs. Zemlinsky’s writing shows him as a restless spirit but moving with the times and interested in what others are doing – Bartók and Hindemith are nodded to at a distance. No 2, playing continuously for nearly 40 minutes, would not have the scale and ambition it does without the example of Schoenberg’s No 1, even though the harmonic language stays closer to Mahler’s. Its flux of continuous variation on a single motto, without obvious repetition, asks a lot of any listener. More personal and fully achieved is No 4, where a suite of six self-contained movements, in contrasted pairs, with common thematic elements, underlines the closeness of the homage to Berg. The shadow of Mahler remains here, and notwithstanding elements of the burlesque and the sardonic, you feel that it’s through his lyrical temperament that Zemlinsky most convincingly identifies himself.