Launched last year, La Dolce Volta is a French label that for some reason sports the silhouette of a motor scooter as its logo. Its catalogue mixes new recordings and reissues, and the Talich Quartet features prominently in both categories. This set of Mendelssohn's eight quartets (the E flat major work from 1823 is included, as well as those with opus numbers) first appeared in the early years of the century on the Calliope label. It wears wonderfully well. In its latest incarnation under Jan Talich Jr, son of the group's founder, the Talich remains a model of instinctively musical, utterly democratic quartet playing. The detail etched into each work here is startling, yet none of it is delivered with the kind of look-at-me self-consciousness with which some groups invest their performances. The freshness of the Op 12 and Op 13 quartets, the mature sweep of the three Op 44 works, and the sense of tragedy and loss that's barely disguised in both the F minor Quartet Op 80 and the Four Pieces Op 81, are all presented in a totally natural yet revealing way. It's a marvellous, joyous set.