The much-admired Esmé Quartet won first prize at the 2018 Wigmore Hall String Quartet Competition, and have since rightly had a stellar career. Here they are, a year ago, playing Schubert D810, the Death and the Maiden quartet.
There is an astounding, prize-winning, recording by the Pavel Haas Quartet of great depth, charged and driven from the first note to the last, but of great subtlety of colour and phrasing. The Esmé Quartet’s performance, I think, bears comparison. Outstanding.