To learn that a particular recording is the last that an artist had made is to encourage speculation about possible ‘valedictory’ qualities, which in the case of pianist Lars Vogt – who died on the afternoon of Monday September 5, 2022, aged 51 – couldn’t be further from the truth. To prove the point, there are issued recordings from Vogt’s own Spannungen music festival of the Third Brahms Piano Quartet from 1999, and of the Second from 2003 (both contained in Vogt’s ‘Complete Warner Classics Edition’ – 1/24). There the emphases tend to be heavier, especially in the finale of the A major, which in 2022 takes on a bouncy Hungarian flavour, more keenly inflected, too. Of course, the different string players greatly influence the overall style of the performances, cellist Heinrich Schiff being more outwardly demonstrative than Ondine’s Tanja Tetzlaff, sensitive though she is.

Interesting that the consensus among the players on the 2022 recording of the epic A major work is of a ‘lighter and relatively straightforward’ piece, a striking definition given the music’s often uncompromising rhythmic thrust, especially in the first movement. The second movement, with its confessional outbursts – first from the piano alone, then from the whole ensemble, led by the strings – is one of Brahms’s creative masterstrokes, once heard never forgotten. Both performances deliver handsomely, but for an impassioned sense of desperation you need to turn to the Beaux Arts Trio with viola player Walter Trampler (Philips/Decca, 9/80) or the Festival Quartet with pianist Victor Babin (RCA, 10/64).

These alternative recommendations apply equally to the tragic C minor Quartet, where of the two Vogt versions I prefer the 1999 option with violinist Antje Weithaas, viola player Kim Kashkashian and cellist Boris Pergamenschikow, who is especially eloquent in his solo at the start of the Andante. But Vogt excels in both performances, as a bracing first among equals in 1999-2003, and as an unwaveringly perceptive playing companion six months before his death, a recording that also enjoys superbly balanced sound. His way with these unassailable masterpieces deserves to be heard.

Fellow pianist Víkingur Ólafsson shared a poignant text Vogt had sent him just before Ólafsson went on stage to perform, two weeks prior to Vogt’s death. The message includes the words: ‘Enjoy the music. Everything is so fragile.’ Passion and fragility combine to form the essence of Vogt’s art, especially in the context of this wonderful music.