Anyone who wisely invested in the Maggini Quartet's terrific Naxos recordings of these two Bliss masterworks (9/02; 12/04) should waste no time in snapping up this essential historical supplement from Dutton. The Grillers were the lucky recipients of the Second Quartet and this famous 1950 recording (set down at Decca's West Hampstead studios within weeks of the Edinburgh Festival world premiere) shows them at the peak of their considerable powers, evincing as it does such nourishing emotional and intellectual scope allied to consummate technical skill and exquisite poise (the Sostenuto slow movement distils an amazing hush and concentration, while the Scherzo goes like the wind). Likewise, the Grillers' searching 1943 account of the scarcely less rewarding First Quartet (1940) betokens a thrilling commitment to the cause; indeed, the playing has breathtaking eloquence and composure. Another enviably proportioned and purposeful conception, too, Bliss's superbly idiomatic part writing probed with luminous devotion and crowned by a gloriously intense reading of the slow movement.

A less interventionist transfer might have preserved more in the way of natural body and helpful bloom (the comparatively husky string patina and curiously muffled lower frequencies are not to my taste). The quality of the music-making, however, is unimpeachable - and full marks to Giles Easterbrook for his typically revealing and personable booklet-notes.