They make interpretive decisions that are unexpected but none the less to me felt deeply initiative and this passage showcases the gorgeous cello line that has extraordinary shaping in how you hear them just briefly melt away and then return. Really intelligent attention to detail.

Shostakovich’s Second Quartet is remarkable for its sheer insistence...The Pavel Haas register all this to the nth degree, and I would have been inclined to hail this one of the finest of all recorded accounts had they only brought more coiled tenseness to the shadowy outer sections of the Waltz third movement.

What we have here is one of the bleakest and most beautiful recordings of the year, with all three quartets (particularly the much-recorded No. 8) approached with an immediacy that would make you swear that the ink was barely dry on the page. They can summon a massive, quasi-orchestral sound when required, so much so that there were moments in the Eighth Quartet when I was convinced I was listening to the piece in Rudolf Barshai’s arrangement for string orchestra.

The Czech players are always worth hearing, especially in their angst-ridden account of the biographical C minor quartet (No 8), but also in the forlorn, if fleeting, F sharp minor (No 7), written in memory of his first wife. Their account of the Second Quartet, in A major, is spacious, intense and symphonically conceived.