The latest instalment of Champs Hill Records's survey of Ludwig Thuille's chamber music and songs focuses on his two string quartets, together with the Quartett-Satz, the manuscript of which was recently discovered in the Munich State Library by Ofer Falk, leader of the Allegri Quartet, who perform all three works here.

Thuille's quartets were all written by the time he was 20, before he moved on to the larger forms of the quintet and sextet, on which his reputation primarily rests. Both the First, in A major, and the Quartett-Satz are a bit too self-consciously modelled on Schubert, though Brahms's influence is apparent in the Second Quartet in G major, a work of quite astonishing beauty. Ending with its slow movement and seemingly lacking an upbeat finale, it is often described as unfinished. But the Allegris' perfectly proportioned performance suggests a cogent artistic statement, complete in itself, to which nothing need be added.