Allan Kozinn of the New York Times reviews Saturday’s concert at the Y featuring the Tokyo String Quartet and pianist Garrick Ohlsson:

The Tokyo performances were more finely polished, but also more risk-averse. If Mr. Ohlsson’s “Pathétique” painted Beethoven as a firebrand, the Tokyo’s two Opus 18 performances showed him warming his feet at Haydn’s hearth. In both works the playing was sumptuous and unified, with carefully graded dynamics. Elegance was paramount here, but that isn’t to say the quartet sacrificed excitement for decorousness: both finales were the picture of nimbleness, and played sizzlingly fast.

The Tokyo String Quartet returns to the Y in January and April.