The violins are a touch slender, the acoustic a touch shadowy, but these matters don’t detract from performances of remarkable insight because the Arcanto Quartet tune in to the potent charge of the composer's free-ranging imagination. Add the warmth they conjure as well, and the Romanza of Op 51 No 1 becomes reminiscent of the Cavatina of Beethoven's Quartet Op 130, withdrawn pianissimi and thoughtful rubati combining with the tempo poco adagio to evoke an atmosphere of chaste beauty. Switch to the Piano Quintet with Silke Avenhaus, and another dimension comes into being. The leaping, forceful semiquavers after the four exploratory opening bars give you a taste of a young, passionate Brahms... his wild side hurled out in the Scherzo, its climax of syncopated, rapidly iterated piano octaves against un-syncopated strings creating a ferocious friction.

I like the allegretto slower, but their passionate performance quite reconciled me to their tempo. The quintet, with the excellent pianist Silke Avenhaus, is equally fine.

This is not a performance in which the piano exerts excessive dominance over the strings, but one in which the blend, the give and take of priority and the delineation of texture come across with a well-developed sense of proportion and with impressive artistry.