Mikhail Kopelman was leader of the Borodin Quartet for 20 years, a period which included one of the better recorded cycles of Shostakovich’s quartets, and his Soviet-trained playing partners all have distinguished track records. So I am at a loss to explain the low voltage and general sogginess of their latest Shostakovich recording. Is it a case of probing for greater intimacy and depth or of simply being over the hill? Just a few bars of Kopelman’s 1978 recording as leader of the Borodin Quartet – any movement will do – are enough to remind you what real dramatic intensity sounds like (and that’s not to mention the greatly superior earlier Borodin version reissued on Chandos, with Rostislav Dubinsky as first violin).

There is logic in the coupling, since Shostakovich’s Tenth was dedicated to Weinberg, whose Piano Quintet is a fine achievement by no means over-shadowed by the comparison. Here, sadly, the same kind of lethargy affects the strings. Fortunately Kopelman’s daughter Elizaveta is not too deferential to her elders, and when she gets the chance to drive the performance it sparks fitfully into life. Even her best efforts, though, are vitiated by a recorded balance that places the piano too far in the background. So, for all the virtues of the piano-playing, this is not a performance to rate alongside other recorded versions, above all that of the composer with the Borodin Quartet (Dubinsky vintage), long overdue for reissue in the West.