both works receive performances that understand and warmly identify with Brahms's intentions: the playing is expressive and there is an obvious love of the music throughout. The Tokyo Quartet players, in both, are a rock-steady basis for the ensemble, and the two soloists...temper virtuosity with a fine sense of their role as an integral part of a chamber group.

the extraordinary homogeneity of sound that comes from a complete quartet of matching instruments is most apparent [in the Piano Quintet]...[the Clarinet Sonata] does occasionally suffer from being a little muscled along. However, the beauty of the blend is so total that it is not difficult to put that to the back of your mind and allow yourself to be mesmerised by the overall perfection

This is a fine version of this masterpiece [Clarinet Quintet].

What lovely music this is and how elegantly both pieces are played here

Nakamatsu and the Tokyo String Quartet are on fine form … playing with an effortless command and sophistication that reveal details of texture and articulation … [a] beautifully played, radiantly engineered performance that is especially alluring in the SACD’s surround sound.

Here is a glorious set of performances that find its way onto somebody’s Pick of the Year list (certainly mine). The immaculate and wise Tokyo String Quartet are joined by two American soloists, clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu, in pristine and moving performances … an important and revealing new recording of two great and very different masterpieces.