You will not need reminding by now that the Strauss and Verdi quartets, a familiar record-company coupling, are the only works for the medium by two composers of predominantly vocal music. Written within seven years of each other, they differ in that the Strauss is a prentice piece in no way anticipating masterworks to come, the Verdi audibly the work of the mature master heard midway between Aida and Otello.

There is another link, however, in the evident admiration of both composers for the ‘Classical’ Viennese masters of the genre. The Strauss has some clearly deliberate homage to the Beethoven Op 18 Quartets, the Verdi to Beethoven’s final work for the medium but also, perhaps characteristically, to the anarchic earthy side of Haydn – the dynamic surprises in the Andantino or the whole idea of a fugal finale.

The performances of the two main works by this New York-based quartet are serious and straightforward – obviously suited to the Strauss (and with a stirring account of its standout Andante cantabile movement) but perhaps too Germanic for the Verdi. No attempt is made to relax into an ‘Italian’ atmosphere, even for moments such as the cello melody in the Scherzo. Compare this to the old Alberni recording (CRD, 5/89 – nla) where a lusher (and larger) sound and atmosphere pays dividends. Also, if the melodic content and musical argument of Verdi’s hugely professional one-off outing intrigue you, try another ‘serious’ reading from the Amadeus (DG, 9/80), very ‘live’, with a standard of playing that puts that of some others in the shade and more relevantly coupled with contemporary Tchaikovsky and Smetana. The shorter Puccini items, little tone-poems, are more lollipop-time and rightly treated as such by the Enso¯. A convenient new collection then, but I would want to look elsewhere for the Verdi.