This is a remarkable set. While perhaps not such an irresistible bargain as Rudolph Barshai’s WDR Shostakovich symphony cycle on Brilliant Classics‚ it’s possible to find it for less than £30 in the UK or around $50 in the States. The recordings, made by Bavarian Radio between 2001 and 2005, are, if anything, classier still, with equally classy annotations by Shostakovich scholars Frans Lemaire and David Fanning. Since fact and speculation are for once carefully defined, you won’t see here the incautious revisionism of so much Shostakovich commentary.

After securing first prize at the 1993 International Dmitri Shostakovich Competition, the Brussels-based Danel Quartet started their on-disc explorations with rarities, mainly French and Belgian, Modernist and Romantic. Meanwhile, Quartet colleagues have worked with members of both the Borodin and Beethoven Quartets, enjoying cordial relations with the composer’s widow, Irina. Fascinating then to find that their approach is often unlike that of recent exponents. While many of those groups have brought the quartets to the very centre of the repertoire, theirs and ours, they have tended to make them into big, declamatory statements, public property if you will. This development may have begun gloriously with the post-Dubinsky, Soviet State-sanctioned Borodin line-up, but a quartet like the Emerson (DG, 6/00) displays a forceful technocratic sensibility that precludes much sense of four musicians playing together for pleasure.

With consistently sweet sounds, pronounced yet carefully matched vibrato and lithe, intimately drawn interpretations, the Danel offer something else again. Though old hands may take a while to adjust, I found their Gallic wit and finesse adding a new dimension to familiar music. You’re never hit with anything more visceral and rosiny than the argument (and the tuning) can stand, but neither is there is any lack of commitment and fire. There is, however, some close-miked sniffing and at times the recorded sound takes on a wiry quality (especially in No 5).

The good news is that these meticulous players are tackling the quartets of Shostakovich’s friend and colleague Mieczyslaw Weinberg for CPO and they’ve also played Shostakovich’s own abandoned first attempt at a Ninth. In the conventional intégrale I would certainly rate them above many bigger names.