This sculpture is a first-rate work of art.

Wouldn't the best answer be: first-rate work in a first-rate play?

I thank them for their first-rate work on the bandstand.

Recognizing the importance of the undertaking, they produced first-rate work for little money, often on tight deadlines.

While not astounding in its insights, this is a first-rate work, a kind of inner history of the cold war.

In particular, our educational system needs to encourage understanding of new national goals and the need for a commitment to first-rate work.

But this was otherwise first-rate work from both.

This is all first-rate work, and I'll say so to the President.

I have to say that my task has been made much easier by the first-rate work of the current Council Presidency.

There seems to be an insistence that genre cannot produce first-rate work.