It has become a convention to tackle a cycle of Shostakovich's 15 string quartets chronologically, so that his increasing command of the form and the way in which he appropriated it to his personal, expressive ends is traced step by step. That is the approach the Emerson Quartet is taking in its survey, shared between the Wigmore Hall, (for the first three of the five programmes), and the Barbican Centre.

But beginning with the first two quartets makes the opening concert rather underwhelming, for both are very cautious essays, not only in comparison with their later siblings, but with the orchestral works that Shostakovich was composing at the same time - the First was produced in 1938 immediately after the Fifth Symphony; the Second Quartet in 1944, after the Eighth. The return to a blameless world seems like an attempt to recapture childhood innocence, but those who are disinclined to take anything Shostakovich wrote at face value inevitably look for coded messages in those folk-tinged melodies.

Unfortunately searching for anguished subtexts is not what the Emerson's approach is all about. They play the music immaculately but never really extract the maximum expressive mileage: there were countless occasions on Friday when more involvement would have produced more intensity. The two quartets were followed here by the Piano Quintet, composed between them; the pianist was Joseph Kalichstein, more interventionist than his colleagues but also sometimes rather splashy in his figuration, yet the engagement missing earlier was certainly welcome. The best in the series, musically and one hopes interpretatively, must still be to come.

Further concerts tonight and Wednesday (Wigmore Hall), Friday and Sunday (Barbican)
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible