The Brodsky Quartet has a good feeling for the structure of both these works; it would be still more effectively expressed if it also responded more easily to the lyrical elements which are an essential part of them. The famous Notturno of Borodin's quartet is a little hasty: there are certainly performances that make far too much of a meal of it, and the lighter touch can bring better rewards, but this is rather too near the surface. Similarly, the impassioned Andante funebre of Tchaikovsky's quartet needs a warmer response: the opening section, with its heavily throbbing figures, is insistent rather than grief-burdened; and the eloquent, elegiac tune (in memory of the work's dedicatee, Ferdinand Laub) seems too impersonal (this is at 3'59''). The Scherzo lacks the kind of nervous unpredictability which Tchaikovsky seems to have had in mind, and a touch more of Mendelssohn—whom Tchaikovsky greatly admired—would have done no harm.'