A few years ago, I interviewed the London-based Elias Quartet about plans to tour and record Beethoven’s complete string quartets. A few days later the publication that commissioned the interview folded and, as I write, our conversation remains untranscribed: lost words of wisdom. But one section, where we cracked into the true nature of spontaneity in music as familiar as Beethoven’s, rewound through my mind as I listened to these deftly articulate and noticeably personal performances of Op. 18 No 4, Op. 74 The Harp and Op. 130, complete with Grosse Fuge finale – all recorded live at the Wigmore Hall in 2014.

The first thing you notice is the sound. Do I hear residual traces of the old-school charm of, say, the Busch or Borodin Quartets? Quite possibly, but then again this playing is perpetually and effortlessly contemporary. Unlike Riccardo Chailly’s extreme-sports take on the symphonies, the quartet’s tempi stick within a narrow bandwidth. But their performance of Op. 130 aspires to something quasi orchestral, their muscular, pile-driver tone motoring the Grosse Fuge forwards in time, the crystal-cut clarity of line against line never negating their meticulous plotting of the music’s kaleidoscope of inner harmonic tensions. You are reminded...