“The London String Quartet’s South Bank (Queen Elisabeth Hall) programme on Saturday night also brought the Turkish pianist Idil Biret to join them in quintets by Schumann and Brahms. It was in the latter’s F minor Quintet, Opus 34, that the group achieved their most rewarding performance, with playing that had a true homogeneity of feeling as well as of purpose… Here, the first movement was extremely well paced, building a strong and exciting character, to which the following Andante was a calm contrast of dream like reflectiveness. Miss Biret’s piano playing was securely blended with that of the quartet, ranging from the necessary assertive character at times to an expressive poetic quality in some of the quieter passages. So impressive a performance, which induced a new admiration for the work.”
– Noël Goodwin, The Times – UK January 1980
“At the group’s London debut on 5 January the London String Quartet produced some wonderfully rich sounds: in the Brahms slow movement, for instance, the E major episode found Benedict Cruft and Ruşen Güneş especially expressive in the unison writing and the return of the theme after the Trio was as ominously expectant as I have heard it—Idil Biret’s tensile, rhythmic playing was especially fine here.”
– Music and Musicians – UK March 1980