As Jane Austen might have said, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a composer’s most personal music is to be found in his string quartets.

Such was the case in this terrific Autumn in Malvern Festival concert by the St Petersburg String Quartet, which placed centenary tributes to Benjamin Britten alongside works by Shostakovich and Purcell.

Particularly apt was the choice of early quartets, Shostakovich’s First and Britten’s Second, as it opened up several avenues of comparison and contrast, as did the complementary shorter pieces. But apart from general musical similarities – both composers struggled to reconcile what they felt with what was expected, and often cocked a snook– the chief differences were of interpretation.

In the Shostakovich the St Petersburg players occasionally seemed quite dispassionate, as if respectful of their composer’s national status. But with Britten (who is still viewed with suspicion in some quarters) nothing was held back.

The Chacony: Sostenuto, Britten’s homage to the G minor Chacony of Purcell (which we heard earlier) was particularly fine, its angular theme paced and structured as a continuous development rather than discrete variations, awesomely controlled in tone and timbre, with every strand and nuance knowingly observed – a wonderful listening experience.