Despite being rather imaginatively programmed and very strongly played, this disc is something of a missed opportunity. The album title refers to the Telegraph Quartet’s unreservedly laudable mission to bring unfamiliar works out of the shadows, but that hardly applies to Webern’s Fünf Sätze (1909), a well-enough-known concert item recorded dozens of times, or Britten’s early Three Divertimenti (1933, rev 1936), which has also been well recorded, as a glance at Presto Classical’s database will confirm. Even the most unfamiliar piece, the First Quartet (1949) by Leon Kirchner – born in the year Webern composed Op 5 – has three rival recordings available.

The 40'15" playing time is ungenerous, too. Were there a specific connection linking the three works that might be justified, but there is none beyond the questionable perception that they need special advocacy, which is true only for Kirchner’s Quartet. Indeed, this is true for all four of Kirchner’s quartets; another of these would have been welcome. Or what about a really unfamiliar piece, one of Robert Starer’s, for example? (The Third of 1996 would have fitted nicely in terms of duration and fitted the brief.) The yawning space after the Divertimenti is aching to be filled since, coming after Kirchner’s bold fusion of Bartók with Schoenberg and Webern’s crystalline masterpiece, Britten’s charming miniatures do not cumulatively make for a wholly satisfying finale.

This is a shame because, as I stated at the start, the playing itself is really very good. The Telegraph Quartet’s accounts are certainly competitive – easily a match for the Orion Quartet in the Kirchner – and if their Britten is not as characterful as the Belcea’s or Endellion’s, it is still persuasive. Much the same applies to the Webern, a far more fiercely contested area. Centaur’s sound is close but very fine.