This new release from the Acacia Quartet pairs favourites from Mozart and Dvořák with a work from Australian composer Alice Chance.

The Mozart String Quartet No 15, K421 is one of the famous quartet pieces from the set dedicated to Haydn – the manuscript of these, apparently, is one of the few times where you can see Mozart making corrections. The Acacia Quartet play this with verve, and there’s some lovely subtleties of colour in the aching Andante. The concluding movement has an almost conversational quality to its short, sharp phrases, rounding the quartet off nicely.

Chance’s String Quartet No 2, Sundried is a great addition to the string quartet repertoire, with a juicy musical language that’s got enough acidity to provide some harmonic surprises, but also enough melodic sensibility to grab an audience, too. Here, though, the recording feels rather too close and dry (appropriate given the title, perhaps?). The opening movement, Exposure, for instance, is crying out for a touch more reverb in the heat-haze opening chords. The playful pizzicatos of the second movement Dribble Castle (and...