Winners of the Wigmore Hall’s prestigious string quartet competition last year, the young French ensemble Quatuor Van Kuijk are currently BBC New Generation Artists, so UK audiences can expect to hear a lot more of them. Their debut recording doesn’t shy away from well-trodden repertoire, but these three Mozart works come up fresh. Two mature works, K428 and K465, flank the teenage composer’s sparkling little D major Divertimento, K136. Nicolas Van Kuijk’s playing is strong and characterful enough to carry the passages where the first violin dominates, but all four players contribute to the extensive colour palette, precise blending and, where apt, the sense of fun that makes these well-judged, serious performances so vivid. In the closing minutes of K428, the players make the music sound first distant, then glassy and otherworldly, effects that would sound self-conscious were the tuning not absolutely watertight. As it is, it works a treat.
