The novelty of Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s double bass quartets lies in his substitution of that husky-voiced instrument for the first violin in a regular string quartet line-up. Seldom heard in such a prominent position the double bass reveals itself as a good humoured and surprisingly expressive vehicle for Hoffmeister’s amiably melodic writing. It also gives an especially haunting melancholic quality to Schubert’s much-loved Arpeggione Sonata, not merely in the beautiful Adagio but also in the more agile outer movements.