Elgar; Delius String Quartets (1989)

"A good coupling: just two years separate the two quartets. Two of the most tragic years of the world's history; yet, happily, this finds no reflection in the music. Nevertheless the two beautiful quartets are not especially similar; you would have to hunt hard for a bar of either which could have come from the other. Perhaps their greatest similarity is that received opinion tends to think both of something less than commanding stature in their respective composer's output. If the Brodsky Quartet, collectively, think this it would be very surprising: for of each of the quartets they give a superlatively idiomatic performance." (Gramophone)