Do you want a recording of Schubert’s miraculous chamber swansong with a double bass taking the second cello part? That’s the first question you have to ask. In fact, the bass player is none other than Rick Stotijn, and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta have proved their brilliance time after time, so purely on its own terms this performance is a bit of a winner. And the ensemble’s biography in the booklet makes a slightly convoluted case for the exercise: Dragonetti was the bassist par excellence in those days and prompted George Onslow to provide alternative bass parts for the second cello in his quintets, which Schubert may well have known. So the ensemble commissioned this arrangement from Marijn van Prooijen, himself a bass player.

Stotijn, we are told, plays a small double bass with a high tuning in fourths and a top C string. The bass adds an extra gravitas, and Stotijn’s playing is so reactive that the work seems borne aloft, reminding one of the earlier Trout Quintet in places. And that wondrous second subject in the first movement – the cello duet with the viola providing the bassetto? Stotijn plays it at the original pitch. If you didn’t know, you’d easily mistake it for the real thing.

The performance itself is everything you’d expect of these players. Tempi seem apt and perhaps it’s only the filigree violin-work in the finale that seems slightly to evade the fingers. You’ll most likely have your favourite Schubert Quintet recording already; among recent groups who offer near-ideal recordings are the Belcea (EMI, 12/09) and Pavel Haas (Supraphon, 10/13) quartets with their guest cellists. So you simply have to ask yourself whether you want a fine recording with double bass.