QBrahms String Quartets—No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51 No. 1; No.2 in A minor, Op. 51 No. 2; No.3 in B flat, Op. 67. Sine Nomine Quartet (Patrick Genet, Fracois Gottraux, vns; Nicolas Pache, va; Marc Jaermann, vc).

Claves ® D CD50-9404/5 (two discs: 99 mmutes: DDD).

Selected comparison—coupled as above:

Alban Berg Qt (2/94) (EMI) CDS7 54829-2

Quartets, Op 51—selected comparison:

Carmina Qt (6194) (DENO) CO-75756

The good-looking young Sine Nomine Quartet hit the headlines as first prize-winners at the Evian International Competition in 1985, since when they have toured widely in the USA and Canada as well as in Europe. Like the Alban Berg Quartet a few months ago, they devote two full-price discs to Brahms's three string quartets alone, which at this early stage of their career might perhaps be thought a little ungenerous (it's surely high time someone or other unearthed one of those early works Brahms is known to have suppressed, as happened in the sphere of the piano trio, to make a better filled set of four!). But you're quickly won over by their overflowing warmth of heart and their exceptional opulence of tone, here enriched by a full recording in the resonance of the Epalinges Church in Lausanne.

In movements like the dramatic opening of the C minor Quartet and the paprika-spiced finale of its successor in A minor, I found their youthful verve more challenging than that of their caring but sometimes over deliberate recent Swiss rivals, the Carmina Quartet. I've rarely heard a more headlong home-coming in the latter work. And how they relish the rustic good humour of the opening movement of the B flat Quartet. I was interested to note that throughout all three quartets they favour slightly faster tempos than even the highly-strung Alban Berg team. Anyone finding those Viennese artists over-attentive to detailed innuendo at the expense of the music's broader, longer flow will certainly enjoy the Sine Nomine's well-nourished continuity of line. Their teamwork is as closely blended as their mellow sonority. But they have still to learn how to make intimate secrets just that much more intimately secretive— not least by subtleties of colouring. JOC