String quartets occupied Henryk Górecki intensively in his later years. Inspired by lines from a Renaissance motet, Already it is dusk (1988) is a compact single movement whose ideas – with folk and sacred overtones – alternate equivocally before conflicting in a fraught central section and moving apart in the resigned conclusion. With a variety of allusions to Beethoven, Quasi una fantasia (1991) unfolds over four movements – the funereal tread of its Largo making way for an often aggressive Deciso then an eloquent Arioso, before the Allegro attempts a synthesis fulfilled only by a fatalistic return to the beginning. Largely completed in 1995, …songs are sung – its title drawn from a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov – was only released for performance a decade later. Here the musical evolution is sustained over 55 minutes, with only a brief Allegro to offset the introspection of movements either side, themselves framed by a searching threnody and a finale that does not so much resolve accumulated tensions as dissolve them into nothingness.

All three works were composed for the Kronos Quartet, whose recordings still serve them admirably. Yet the visceral quality of the Royal Quartet’s renditions points up emotional contrasts in the first two quartets rather more readily, while their emotional commitment makes the finale of the Third Quartet feel more an intended apotheosis than an extended postlude. Those possessing the earlier discs need to not rush to change. But, with its ideal quartet sound and informative booklet-notes, this would be the preferred choice.