A few years ago, the composer Friedrich Gernsheim was to be made palatable to the world as the "romantic who invented the Winnetou melody": His music, it was said, was "catchy, to a certain extent barrier-free", his rediscovery "great fun". Of course, the anachronism of a coincidental equality of notes does as little for the recognition of artistic value as the degradation of the work to superficial entertainment.

A work such as the fourth string quartet presented here is quite sufficient to demonstrate the whole seriousness of Brahms' friend in an exemplary manner: Elegant in its basic mood, spiced with an enchanting scherzo and glowing in its dramatic intensifications, the composition from 1900 proves to be a top-class masterpiece that leaves deep traces - traces, of course, whose beginnings go back a long way, as the first string quintet, a good thirty years older, reveals to anyone who knows how to listen seriously.