"Right from the start you know that the Tokyo Quartet's will be a dramatic, fiery reading: there's that hair-raising initial attack, with subsequent loud/soft contrasts powerfully underlined. Each movement has its basic pulse, but within that pulse there's plenty of freedom. . . . [T]he trio of the Scherzo has a real lilt: a strong contrast with the biting, vigorous playing immediately before it. And I like the way they evoke the ghost of a dance in the variations—the spectral ballerina effect in Variation No. 1 is genuinely touching." -- Stephen Johnson, Gramophone