There's irresistible joie de vivre in this performance of Souvenir de Florence. The Endellion is clearly fired up by the two extra string partners, and the ensemble conveys the kind of spontaneous enjoyment that only comes from the best chamber music playing. In Quartet No. 3, however, the Borodins are a hard act to follow. All credit to the Endellion for taking a different approach - more intense in the playful Scherzo, and in the funeral slow movement observing the composer's con moto marking at the expense of the heart-on-sleeve approach adopted by the Russians.

The elegiac Third Quartet shows a typically spirited approach, with wide-ranging expression. The great Andante funebre e doloroso has sometimes sounded more doleful at the start (it certainly does in the Borodin Quartet recording) but in this version the music keeps moving, as Tchaikovsky asks, and the consoling second theme is most beautifully characterised.