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Title: The Tokyo Quartet is a Machine . . .
Review: . . . but WHAT a machine! Some listeners may find this set less emotionally engaging than others. Personally, my favorite set is the Quartetto Italiano's on Philips, which keeps me from giving this set five stars: the QI plays with more sympathy and feeling, I think, than Tokyo. And any number of comparisons are possible. But if perfection is what you are looking for (and some days, we want polish more than we want elusive emotional qualities) this is perhaps the recording of the late quartets you will want. Tokyo's precision is sometimes breathtaking, and nowhere more so than in the opening of the Grosse Fuge (here played in its original position, as the final movement of the Quartett Op 130; don't worry, the later ending is there also).
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