When it comes to choosing a recommendable version of Enescu’s fiery and tightly argued Octet, a work written in 1900 when the composer was 19 years old, couplings may well prove crucial. Kremerata Baltica on Nonesuch, who perform the composer-sanctioned concerto grosso-style orchestral version with solo strings, opt for another Enescu masterpiece, the Piano Quintet, Op 29 – a useful choice, very well performed. Vilde Frang and friends (Warner Classics) ditch the idea of more Enescu, of chamber music altogether in fact, and opt instead for Bartók’s youthful First Violin Concerto, superbly played by Frang herself.

The Gringolts Quartet and Meta4 offer a sleek, keenly inflected performance of another great Octet by a teenager (just 16 this time), Mendelssohn’s in E flat, Op 20. Interesting that in the first movement, which is played with its exposition repeat intact and is more the qualifying ma con fuoco than the basic Allegro moderato, there’s the occasional added embellishment. In the sensitively played Andante second movement all voices, whether inner or outer, are cleanly delineated, whereas the Scherzo trips the light fantastic and the finale is a virtuoso tour de force. I don’t recall enjoying a recording of Mendelssohn’s youthful masterpiece quite as much as this since the (stylistically very different) Heifetz-Piatigorsky recording from the early 1960s (RCA/Sony Classical).

At the start of the Enescu the new version projects a rhythmically stronger bass line than its most recent rival but it’s Frang and her colleagues who achieve a higher level of nervous energy. The lighter-toned Gringolts/Meta4 combination is marginally more relaxed, though their handling of the second idea (4'16") is relatively sombre. There are times when Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht springs to mind, especially towards the end of the same movement with its ghostly reminiscence of the opening, Frang here sounding improvisatory, Gringolts more mysterious. In the ‘explosive fugato’ second movement Gringolts/Meta4 don’t quite match Frang for sheer savagery, preferring a danse macabre approach to all out aggression, though when it comes to the reflective Lentement slow movement both groups offer a poignant, similarly paced reading of some remarkably beautiful music. Kremerata Baltica on the other hand, although equally expressive, are significantly swifter.

The finale again brings in quasi-fugal ideas which Gringolts/Meta4 latch on to with a sense of purpose, though it’s Frang et al who prefer to keep the heat full on. Theirs is the recording that I would turn to first, with Gringolts/Meta4 as a somewhat softer but equally musical alternative and Kremerata Baltica for a compelling rendition of the rarer full-string version.