The Debussy-Ravel axis is the most famous chamber pairing in the catalogue and it would perhaps be easier to note those quartets that don’t pair them together than those that do. The Tokyo Quartet’s recordings date from August 1977 and are now amazingly a quarter of a century old. Little has dated about the performances even if there is a nagging feeling that they, as with other groups, properly fail to distinguish the characters of each work one from another. The tumbling violin lines in the opening of the movement of the Debussy are finely done; they lean into the notes and bend the rhythm of the second movement with phrasal insouciance; they express delicacy and concentration in the Andantino and in the finale are sonorous – violist Kazuhide Isomura especially so. In the Ravel the continuity of mood is captured with cellist Sadao Harada prominent in the tonal balance, particularly in the Assez vif second movement. They are subtle as well as instrumentally sound.
