The playing is both highly competent and agreeably sensitive. Some may find too many expressive changes of tempo in the first movement; I liked this approach, though I did wonder if they had eased off the tempo a shade too much in the Trio of the Scherzo; no change is marked. The finale is played at a great speed with exciting precision. The last loud bars in the slow movement sound rather nasty as they nearly always do, this being Schubert's fault; with the Melos Quartet (available on DG—part of a four-LP boxed set) the problem (if it is one) was solved by emphasizing the cello and second violin at the expense of the first violin. On the first page I noticed a very slight tendency for the Orlando Quartet to sound further from the microphone in the very quiet bits than in the loud, but in fact the quality is good. But I enjoyed the CD version a shade more because the dynamic contrasts are not quite so extreme, and climaxes, for instance in the variations, have lost that touch of hardness sometimes apparent on the digital LP.'