Adding yet more versions to the well stocked discography of the Quartet for the End of Time is surely not the best way to celebrate Messiaen’s centenary. That’s not to imply that the work itself is overrated. The music is so indestructibly strong and imaginative, it always makes an impact. Yet so extreme are the contrasts it embodies that very few ensembles meet all its challenges with equal success.

With the Philharmonia Soloists and pianist Matthew Schellhorn the early movements seem rather too deliberate, with individual phrases distinctly poker-faced, and the recording does the cello and violin no favours in the ecstatic fifth and eighth movements. The Wanderer Trio provide much more characterful playing, recorded in a well balanced, spacious acoustic, and although the tempi for the second, fifth and seventh movements are often on the slow side (however faithful to the composer’s suggested values), the virtuoso sixth movement goes with a degree of infectious exuberance rarely matched in other versions. The augmented Gould Trio is less bold but still turns in an admirably well judged, scrupulously expressive performance, very well recorded.

On their own, none of these performances definitively outclasses the best of the competition; but the other works included might persuade some collectors to add another Quatuor to the pile. Both the Chandos and Harmonia Mundi discs include the early Thème et variations for violin and piano, and here the Chandos seems a fraction less immediate, the playing less sheerly spontaneous than the Harmonia Mundi. The Gould team also offer a rarity in the form of Messiaen’s piano arrangement of his early orchestral piece Les offrandes oubliées, and Benjamin Frith’s fine performance underlines just how pianistic the turbulent central episode actually is.

On Signum we have the early Fantaisie for violin and piano – included on the estimable CD from the Hebrides Ensemble (Linn, 8/08) and fascinating though scarcely vintage Messiaen. But the main find is Signum’s first recording of a miniature sight-reading test piece from 1934 – gentle, lullaby-like, with enough harmonic density to keep students alert. This, together with Le merle noir and the late movement for piano quintet, completes a worthwhile and distinctive release, even if the performance of the Quatuor itself is too idiosyncratic to demolish all the competition.