Here we have James MacMillan’s earliest foray into the string quartet medium. Taking its title from an expression marking found in Götterdämmerung, we do not need all the spot-the-quote examples in the booklet-note to recognise that Etwas zurückhaltend owes much to the music of Wagner. It may be a student work – MacMillan wrote it while at Durham in 1982 – but, as it appears here, it is a thoroughly accomplished piece which, in its extended (almost 21 minutes) single movement, ingeniously pays homage to Wagner while revealing much that has since become characteristic of MacMillan’s more mature style.

Two other quartet pieces are appearing on disc for the first time here, the most recent being the profoundly moving For Sonny, composed in 2011 to commemorate an infant death. There is something enchantingly childlike about the gently pattering pizzicato violin, with the underlying tragedy created by the simplest yet most effective of harmonic shifts underneath. From 2007 comes String Quartet No 3, MacMillan’s longest exercise in the medium. The opening idea, presented in octaves, at once sets the scene, firmly rooted in the great traditions of string quartet-writing yet with the inflections of folk music giving it a distinctly MacMillanesque flavour. The fourth piece on the disc is MacMillan’s first true string quartet, Visions of a November Spring, dating from 1988. This is a much more exploratory and unconventional piece, the first movement, in particular, devoting much of its energies to exploring the note D.

The outstanding Edinburgh Quartet deliver every detail of these sometimes complex scores with total commitment, communicating them with passion and intensity. With an excellent recorded sound, this is a superb and valuable addition to the discography of MacMillan’s purely instrumental music.