| Tokyo Quartet shines at South Bank Centre |
| “…this was quartet playing of the highest order. One of the group’s signature pieces has always been the Ravel Quartet and these players brought to bear a wonder-fully expressive flexibility. The scurrying figures of the first movement were corralled into finely ordered patterns, with scintillating play of colour and texture. The Scherzo also featured meticulously tapered phrasing, with subtle interplay of pizzicato, but it was in the slow movement that the sensually veiled sonorities and sweet-sour harmonies made their most ravishing effect... In Beethoven’s D major Quartet, Op 18 No 3, the slow movement allowed Kopelman to demonstrate the extraordinarily rich, burnished tone of his lower register...There was near-miraculous shading in all movements and some warmly expressive phrasing from the interrogatory rising seventh that opens the work. The final Presto was a dazzling display of antiphonal exchanges and sudden changes of direction, all hurtling by at top speed. Truly fabulous playing.” (The Times, December 1999) |
