As the Britten centenary approaches in 2013, more of his unheard youthful works will no doubt come into the open. The Britten-Pears Foundation holds no less than 750 pieces of juvenilia and one of them gets its first recording here: the Miniature Suite, a light-hearted divertissement, written at the age of 15. Who would ever have thought Britten was the composer? The opening Novelette seems to have escaped from Elgar’s Enigma Variations and two other movements, the Menuetto and Gavotte, rather knowingly try on the powdered wigs of the Baroque.

The Suite is an entertaining makeweight, not more. Even so it fits well in the Emperor Quartet’s programme. Alongside the Miniature Suite are two other early Britten quartet works, the Three Divertimenti and the D major Quartet, written in 1931 but shelved until a revision two years before the composer’s death. In their very different ways these are highly imaginative works and they receive lively, engaging performances here.

In the String Quartet No 2, the main work on the disc, the Emperor players lie midway between the taut authority of the Amadeus Quartet (Decca) and the expansive emotional landscape explored by the Elias Quartet (Sonimage, 6/10). Among recent recordings they are closest to the Belcea Quartet (EMI, 7/05), somewhat leaner in sound, cooler in intent, but capturing the essential Britten style well – salt-sea splashes of sound, straight out of Peter Grimes, in the Vivace – and able to build up the final Chacony as inexorably as any. Having three early works on this disc leaves room for a follow-up Britten recital from the Emperor Quartet, which is good news.