Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen wrote his first three string quartets in 1959 and his 14th and last in 2013, three years before he died. This first volume in a new cycle comes from an ensemble coached by Tim Frederiksen (he who gave us the Nightingale Quartet) at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The Nordic Quartet gave their graduation performance at the Academy last autumn.

It’s revealing to see how this ultra-distinctive composer’s voice was formed over the course of the first six quartets, all presented here (though not in order). PGH took in Fartein Valen-style serialism in No 1, a calmly piloted Andante of eight minutes. No 2 is focused but conventional, with some signs of the future in its trickery and itchy-scratchy Allegretto. No 3 is a series of short studies, not unlike Webern’s Bagatelles, which can sound complex but are grounded by simple rhythms. By No 4 of 1967, PGH is approaching that laconic simplicity and childlike mixture of wonder and naivety that would colour so many of his masterpieces. It’s like a stretch of gauze that reimagines the chirping of cicadas.

Nos 5 and 6 are recognisably PGH in an instant – music apparently carried by an animal instinct that the composer is barely able to tame, and that’s always more enchanting than shocking despite how it looks on the page. No 5, Step by Step, uses a mapped tonal scheme hinted at in No 2: a system of broadening intervals which suggests determined movement across a chessboard and eventually prompts momentary collapses through exhaustion. The shuffling gait so distinctive of the composer is emerging here, while the note-writer Steen Pade draws comparison with the servant Clov from Beckett’s Endgame.

No 6, Parting, is classic PGH in its exploration of relationships straining in their formation or disintegration (the latter in this case). It is beautiful even when the breakdown feels inevitable – huge silences punctuated by gestures of such considered beauty that the tension never lets up, suggesting the deep unspoken things that bind us together. It is desperately sad even as it smiles. These are tight, no-nonsense and considered performances. The Nordic Quartet don’t quite project the individuality of the Nightingale Quartet and can sound laid-back. Perhaps, in these works, that’s both a benefit and an accomplishment. I relish the works to come and hope we’ll be hearing PGH’s ‘15th’ quartet work, All In One, which consists of Quartets Nos 12, 13 and 14 played at the same time.