How you respond to these interpretations will depend on how you respond to the playing style of the Mosaïques Quartet. Theirs is a mildly insistent, lumbering gait that is perhaps a corporate reflection of Erich Höbarth’s weighty mode of expression. But when modified to suit the music, eg Haydn’s Op 64 Nos 2, 4 & 5 (10/02), the results are of a richly inflected potency – which is not always repeated here.

Sample the first movements of both quartets. The opening bars are lyrically expounded, that of No 3 matching Basil Lam’s description “exquisitely poetic”; but in both cases the Mosaïques offer little variety to their full tone and subdue the lean drive that also characterises the music. It is a single-minded view, of a corpulent comfort that also spills into the Adagio cantabile slow movement of No 2 where a loosely held middle Allegro doesn’t offer enough contrast.

But there is a much less inhibited side to their approach too. Get past the Scherzo of No 2, short on incisive lightness, to find a performance of the finale that is the antithesis of what’s gone before. The Mosaïques here break away from the constraints of the bar-line and allow the rhythm to flow freely. The result is a forward-moving exuberance that is as unexpected as it is welcome. The slow movement of No 3 also benefits from a similar flow but studied doggedness returns to afflict the remaining movements. Good sound but transfer levels are too high.