Chamber music is relatively sparsely represented in Kancheli’s output and it is hard to imagine his characteristic long, meditative structures working to maximum effect without the colouristic resources of the orchestra to provide contrast. This disc supplies generally convincing answers.

Both Time…and Again and the Piano Quartet which gives the disc its title are as long and as slow as the familiar Kancheli. But the violin and piano duo immediately sets off on an unusual course by means of intransigent opening gestures more suggestive of Ustvolskaya, and it makes several encounters of a Schnittkean kind before introducing some trademark images of wistful innocence. As ever, it is in the confrontation of painful reality and longed-for transcendence, neither of which is allowed to unfold fully, that the expressive and ethical power of Kancheli’s music resides. It takes a performance as inwardly intense as this one by its dedicatees to get to the heart of the matter.

As the subtitle indicates, the Piano Quartet sticks unflinchingly to its initial quaver=50 tempo – making it one of many compositions from the lands of the former Soviet Union that have picked up the threads from Shostakovich’s last String Quartet. Not the least impressive thing about this piece is the way Kancheli delays his first protesting outburst until close to the 10-minute mark (the next comes at around 23’20”). On early acquaintance, the Piano Quartet could ideally do with a couple more memorable ideas of that kind, and it is hard to see it winning the repertoire status of, say, Schnittke’s Piano Quintet. But this is still a finely crafted work and one that I am looking forward to returning to, not least so as to renew my admiration for the playing of the Bridge Ensemble, who gave the premiere in 1998.

Composed at the initiative of Yehudi Menuhin for his Gstaad Festival, V & V again features the almost preternatural calm of Kremer’s violin playing. The other ‘V’ is the voice, represented by taped fragments of the same Svanetian funeral lament heard in Kancheli’s Third Symphony, the idea being to counterpose this symbol of the Eternal with the Real as represented by the violin and strings. Kancheli’s calculated underuse of a virtuoso known for extrovert agility sets up a tension that is masterfully sustained through to the concluding reappearance of the voice.

These pieces were recorded over four years in three different locations; not that you would know that from the purity of the recorded sound, in the best ECM tradition. Supporting documentation in the booklet is more discursive than informative.