Jurgis Karnavičius’s work is newly rediscovered in his native Lithuania, though his historical importance has always been clear. Born in 1884, he studied and worked in Russia (St Petersburg, where his teachers included Liadov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Steinberg), but in 1927 he made a conscious decision to return to the land of his birth and be a genuinely Lithuanian composer. Indeed, he wrote the first Lithuanian opera of the period following independence, in 1933. But his Russian training was very obvious in his music, and he remained an isolated figure.

The Quartet No 1 dates from 1913, after his graduation. It is extremely classical in conception and gesture, in the traditional four movements, though it is tonally quite adventurous (one is never quite certain where the third movement is going after its serpentine, imitative opening), and the abrupt contrasts of the second-movement Allegro – Moderato – Allegro are genuinely striking.

Dating from four years later, the Quartet No 2 is darker in tone, while still essentially lyrical. Both the first movement, Molto moderato – Allegro moderato, and the third, Andante, have a real sense of a build-up of power, as though under pressure from external events, and even in the notionally cheerful second (Allegretto – Sostenuto – Allegretto) one has the sense that the cheerfulness is hard won, while the final Allegro has definite dark undertones. The Vilnius Quartet miss none of these nuances, and Ondine’s recording team have done them full justice. A fascinating discovery.