Fanfare: Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B, Alternate Finale
Fanfare
November/December 2010
by Jerry Dubins
When the Cypress Quartet's first volume in the start of a new Beethoven cycle came to me for review in Fanfare 33:2, I had yet to make acquaintance with this San Francisco-based ensemble. After repeated listening to the disc. which contained the C#-Minor. op. 131. and F Major, op. 135. quartets, I reported that "the technical resources of this ensemble are awesome, and the communicative expressiveness the players achieve, individually and collectively, through articulation of dynamics and modulation of vibrato and bow pressure are breathtaking." I concluded by advising readers to buy the CD and spend time, quoting John Amis, "getting in touch with some higher state of being." read more »
The Big City: Cypress plays Beethoven at Tenri, NYC
The Big City Blog
November 15, 2010
by George Grella
Fine concert from the Cypress String Quartet last night at Tenri. They represented their two CDs (one more on the way) of the late Beethoven Quartets with performances of the F Major, Op. 135 and B Flat Major, Op. 130, with the Grosse Fugue finale, quartets. They play wonderfully the interpretive choices they make are completely convincing; the relaxed tempo to open Op. 135, the precise and confident playing of the tricky rhythms in the Vivace movement, unsentimental slow movements, a very powerful feeling of crisis and resolution in the finale. read more »
American Record Guide: Beethoven Quartet 13 & Grosse Fuge
American Record Guide
November/December 2010
by William Bender
Cypress 6749-60:26 (912 Cole St Apt 137, San Francisco CA 94117)
Quartets 12-16; Grosse Fuge
La Salle Quartet
Brilliant 94064 [3CD] 196 minutes
The Cypress is Volume 2 of what so far is a highly commendable set of the late quartets of Beethoven. Volume 1 containing Quartets 14 and 16 was released in 2009 to a warm welcome by Paul Althouse (Nov/Dec 2009), who thought the group's sound "uncommonly fine: rich and beautifully balanced" and called the album "an impressive start to the series". I share his enthusiasm. read more »
Metro Pulse: KSO Finds Room for Innovation in Gershwin’s Best-Known Works
Metro Pulse
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
by Alan Sherrod
One of the unfortunate, gaping holes in the Knoxville-area classical music scene is the dearth of appearances by notable ensembles with national reputations. Thankfully, the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association has the means and the willingness to help correct that deficiency, albeit for an Oak Ridge audience. Last weekend, their Chamber Series brought the marvelous Cypress String Quartet, a San Francisco-based ensemble, to Oak Ridge for a concert of works by Glazunov and Beethoven, along with a newly commissioned work, Bel Canto, by Elena Ruehr. This 15-year-old ensemble, consisting of violinists Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violist Ethan Filner, and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel, is clearly dedicated to exquisite music-making and to opening up the string quartet repertoire to new works. read more »
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Beethoven: Late Quartets, Vol. 2
The Cleveland Plain Dealer / Cleveland.com
Sunday, July 11, 2010
by Zachary Lewis
Beethoven: Late Quartets, Vol. 2
Cypress String Quartet
Cypress Performing Arts Association
In the forest of Beethoven recordings, the Cypress String Quartet's are some of the mightiest trees. Compounding the success of its first installment of late-Beethoven quartets, the San Francisco-based ensemble here considers the great B-Flat Major, Op. 130, offering special insight by including both the original "Grosse Fuge" and the later, alternate finale. The performances are masterly: technically assured and lucidly conversational. After this, one can hardly wait for the third and final release. Grade: A
Examiner.com:The Cypress String Quartet comes to the de Young Museum
Examiner.com
July 7, 2010
by Stephen Smoliar
At 7 PM on Friday, July 23, the Cypress String Quartet (Cecily Ward, violin; Tom Stone, violin; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) will perform in the Koret Auditorium at the de Young Museum inGolden GatePark. The Museum offers a weekly series of "Friday Night Soirées," which they call Cultural Encounters; and the Cypress performance, entitled Impressions, Then and Now…, is one of five events scheduled for that evening. Their choice of title reflects the Museum's current exhibit, Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay. In keeping with the theme, the Cypress will perform Claude Debussy's Opus 10 string quartet in G minor and Jennifer Higdon's Impressions. The performance will be complemented by images from the d'Orsay exhibit. read more »
Sacramento Bee: Five CD releases for summer listening
The Sacramento Bee
July 6, 2010
By Edward Ortiz – Sacramento Bee
Cypress String Quartet
Beethoven Late Quartets
String Quartet in B-flat major, Opus 130, with Große Fuge
Does the classical world need another recording of Beethoven's Late Quartets? This CD suggests that the answer is a resounding "Yes!" This San Francisco-based ensemble distinguishes itself with a brilliant, sometimes austere, but incisive reading of these intimate, difficult and elusive quartets.
A/V Club of Atlanta: Late String Quartets, Vol.2
Audio Video Club of Atlanta
July, 2010
Phil's Classical Reviews
LATE STRING QUARTETS, VOL. 2
Cypress String Quartet
The San Francisco-based Cypress String quartet – Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violins; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello – score impressively in Volume 2 of their Late Beethoven Quartet Series (Vol. 3 will be out in 2011). They show, if that’s possible, even more élan than they did in last year's first release in the cycle. That's easy to do when the subject is Quartet No. 13 in B-flat, Op. 130 and the Große Fugue, Op. 133, works that reveal Beethoven's most profoundly human qualities, which include a remarkable sense of humor as well as drama and pathos. read more »
All Music Guide: Beethoven: String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 130; Große Fuge, Op. 133
All Music Guide
June 23, 2010
by Uncle Dave Lewis
In the second installment of their recorded cycle of the late Beethoven string quartets, Cypress String Quartet have elected to attack the quartet that is both the longest -- in its original version -- and contains his latest music of any kind, Beethoven's String Quartet in B flat major Op. 130. Of the two attributes previously mentioned, they cannot be had simultaneously in a single realization of the work, as the Opus 130 becomes Beethoven's longest quartet by virtue of inclusion of its original last movement -- the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 -- and latest only through the use of the replacement "Finale: Allegro" submitted in its stead. read more »
Midwest Record: Cypress String Quartet / Beethoven Late Quartets V. 2
MIDWEST RECORD
June 12 2010
Volume 33/Number 223
Not wanting to give you too much of a good thing, the quartet now releases the second volume in a planned three volume set that certainly could serve to be the last word on these works for some time to come. read more »
Audiophile Audition: Beethoven String Quartet Op.130 and Op.133
Audiophile AuditionJune 2010
by Gary Lemco
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet o. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130; Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 and alternate ending: Allegro (1826) - Cypress String Quartet - Cypress Performing Arts Vol. 2, 63:00 [www.cypress quartet.com] ****:
Volume 2 of the Cypress String Quartet --Cecily Ward, violin; Tom Stone, violin; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello --survey of the Beethoven cycle is devoted to the B-flat Major Quartet (1825), to which Beethoven referred as his "Liebquartett," his "precious creation" containing many of his most expressive, intimate tunes. In six movements, it already breaks with Classical tradition; and its original conclusion, the Grosse Fuge, adds yet another severe intellectual dimension to the demands this piece makes upon both performers and audience. read more »
MusicWeb International: Benjamin Lees (1924-2010)
MusicWeb International
June 1, 2010
by Glyn Pursglove
I sat down to type up this review late on the evening of Tuesday 1 June 2010. Halfway through doing so, wanting to check a date, I went to the web site devoted to Benjamin Lees (www.benjaminlees.com/), where I was faced with the following announcement: "IT IS WITH PROFOUND SADNESS THAT THE FAMILY ANNOUNCES THE PASSING OF COMPOSER BENJAMIN LEES ON MAY 31, 2010". This review - written on the day after the composer's death - necessarily becomes more of a memorial than I intended it to be when I sat down to put it together. read more »
Gramophone: Ruehr’s engaging quartets are performed with conviction
Gramophone
Sounds of America Reviews
May 2010
by Laurence Vittes
'How She Danced' - String Quartets - No 1; No 3; No 4. Cypress Quartet® C5Q2010 (75' • DOD)
The Cypress Quartet takes its name from love songs by Dvořák, and love is what they unfailingly play with on this new release: three string quartets. Musically speaking, the results are never eclectic; every bar sounds completely her own; the string writing is lush. The Fourth Quartet was a Cypress Quartet "Call & Response" commission winner in 2005. Ruehr was asked to "be inspired" by Beethoven's Op 59 No 3 - the epigrammatic Razumovsky - and Mozart's so-called Dissonance Quartet, K465. But the music becomes immediately absorbing on its own.by Dr Elena Ruehr, currently at MIT. The good doctor writes music that expresses sober populist sentiment in intoxicated streams of post-late-post-Romantic long-limbed melody occasionally interrupted by notes of reality. By this compelling route, with thoughtful pace and a profound respect for conventional harmony, Ruhr's music reaches deep into the psyche. For some people it will reach deep into their heart. read more »
Examiner.com: Nothing secondary about the second cello
Examiner.com
April 27, 2010
by Stephen Smoliar
One of my music teachers told me a beautiful joke about Igor Stravinsky and Franz Schubert. The story was that Stravinsky told friends that he would always fall asleep during a performance of Schubert's music; but then he would awaken and find that he was in Heaven. I have always believed that Stravinsky's moment of awakening took place at the beginning of the second movement of Schubert's D. 956 string quintet in C major, even if I felt strongly that there was absolutely nothing soporific about the first movement. This work was composed just month's before Schubert's death, and one can let one's Romantic imagination run wild and almost see one set of Angels preparing for his Ascension while another five are hard at work rehearsing this movement.
read more »Peninsula Review: Cypress String Quartet / Chamber Music Monterey Bay
Peninsula Review
Posted: Apr 18, 2010
By Lyn Bronson
The Cypress String Quartet rounded off Chamber Music Monterey Bay's 2009-2010 season last night at Sunset Center with strong performances of string quartets by Mendelssohn and Beethoven, plus the performance of a new quartet by a young composer we are hearing with increasing frequency, Kevin Puts.
Last night's program centered on the new 12-minute work for string quartet by Kevin Puts, Lento Assai. The program notes told us that “Lento Assai was commissioned as part of the Cypress String Quartet's ongoing 'Call & Response Project', in which new composers write works inspired by timeless masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire." The two works presented to Puts for his study and inspiration were Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13, and Beethoven's last work for the string quartet genre, the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.
read more »The Strad: Ruehr String Quartets nos. 1, 3 & 4
The Strad
April 2010
by David Kettle
It's a brave move by the San Francisco-based Cypress Quartet to devote its new disc entirely to a contemporary composer, and a little-known name at that. But the music of Elena Ruehr, raised in Michigan and now teaching at MIT, is so appealing, and the performances by the Cypress players so persuasive, that the project brings rich rewards. read more »
Audiophile Audition: How She Danced – String Quartets of Elena Ruehr
Audiophile AuditionMarch 31, 2010
by Robert Moon
These are very impressive contemporary quartets and I look forward to hearing more music from Elena Ruehr.
How She Danced - String Quartets of ELENA RUEHR - Cypress String Quartet - Cypress String Quartet Performing Arts Association, 75:10 *****:
American composer Elena Ruehr has the rare gift of writing music that is immediately likable (fragmented melodies that stick in the mind), but clothed in rhythmic and harmonic complexity that engages the emotions and stimulates the musical mind. Then there is a third level of engagement – she attaches a story or an inspiration to many of the movements of these three string quartets. In the third movement of her First String Quartet – titled "Let's Sit Beneath the Stars," Ms. Ruehr uses a melody that was passed down from her relatives that came from a refugee slave that was staying at a family house that was part of the underground railway. It's a beautiful slow movement that is contrasted by the finale – a rhythmically wild "Estampe." read more »
Times Herald-Record: Cypress String Quartet gives a rousing salute to spring
Times Herald-Record
March 23, 2010
By James F. Cotter
NEWBURGH - The Cypress String Quartet helped welcome the apriq season with a concert Sundayy afternoon at St. George's Episcopal Church. The Newburgh Chamber Music series, co-founded by Carole Cowan, its president, is in its 10th year and again sponsored the internationally known group that is made up of violinists CecilyWard and Tom Stone, violist Ethan Filner and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel. They played with passion, expertise and sensitivity, obviously at home with the music and one another in their ensemble interpretations of string quartets by Haydn, Barber and Schubert. read more »
Times-Union: The Cypress String Quartet @ Friends of Chamber Music
Times Union (Troy, NY)
March 22, 2010
By Priscilla McLean, Special to the Times Union
On a beautiful early spring evening the Friends of Chamber Music Inc. presented the Cypress String Quartet, a remarkable young ensemble from San Francisco who played a concert of works spanning four centuries. Although a strong, robust sound from the violins was often missing, the ensemble itself was elegant in its cohesiveness and clarity, even playing exquisitely at times. read more »
Buffalo News: How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr
Buffalo News - Listening PostMarch 21, 2010
by Jeff Simon
Here is the fine young Cypress Quartet's cellist Jennifer Kloetzel explaining to Saint Paul Sunday’s Bill McGlaughlin how the San Francisco Quartet's close relationship to 46-year-old MIT composer Elena Ruehr came about: "A few years ago we decided to champion the composers whose music we like—by playing their music a lot and playing a lot of their music. We commission and recommission them and really get into their world, that's become something that's very important to us— Elena's become a real part of our musical lives." Her music is "infectious," says the ensemble's violist, Ethan Filner. You can say that again many times over after hearing the Cypress Quartet's recordings of Ruehr's Quartets Nos. 1, 3 and 4. The result of the quartet's immersion in Ruehr's musical world is one of the most appealing contemporary quartet discs in a very long time. read more »
Daily Gazette: String quartet impresses with its wide variety of selections
Dailygazette.com (Troy, NY)
March 20, 2010
by Geraldine Freedman
TROY -- The Cypress String Quartet presented a concert Friday night at Emma Willard's Kiggins Hall as part of the 61st season of the Friends of Chamber Music with a program that had pieces from four centuries. The evening was also in honor of WMHT, which was taping the concert for future rebroadcast.
Violins Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, viola Ethan Filner and cello Jennifer Kloetzel have been together 13 years, annually do up to 90 concerts and over the years have commissioned 25 pieces, many of which have made it into the mainstream repertoire. They're an energetic group and showed a nice grasp of touch and sound quality as they progressed from one century to the next.
read more »CNY Cafe Momus: Cypress String Quartet captures humor of Haydn, soul of Schubert
CNY Café Momus
March 20, 2010
by David Abrams
Cypress String Quartet captures humor of Haydn, soul of Schubert
The San Francisco-based ensemble's convincing Syracuse performance makes a persuasive argument for greater exposure
There's no shortage of first-rate string quartets on the circuit today, and over the course of the past 60 years the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music has successfully hitched its wagon to some of the biggest names in the industry. Still, it is well to remember that good things often come in small packages.
Saturday evening's performance by the Cypress String Quartet, an ensemble that maintains a 90-plus yearly concert schedule yet remains hidden in the shadows of more high-profiled ensembles such as the Emerson, Orion, Tokyo and Takacs Quartets, demonstrated that it can hold its own against the very best of these venerable quartets. read more »
Boston Globe: ‘Bel Canto’ moves from page to stage
The Boston Globe
March 13, 2010
By David Weininger, Globe Correspondent
Novel inspires composer’s work for string quartet
The Cypress String Quartet premiered "Bel Canto" in San Francisco last month. The group gives the first East Coast performance on Wednesday at Wellesley College.
The novel "Bel Canto" won the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and garnered a lot of praise for its author, Ann Patchett. Soon she found herself besieged with ideas for adaptations: movies, an opera, a Broadway show. Among the names potentially involved: Bertolucci, Eisner, Lloyd Webber.
"My joke about 'Bel Canto' is that I’ve had everything except a finger puppet review proposed to me," says Patchett by phone from her home in Nashville. "So many things have almost happened and dismally failed before they got off the ground."
read more »Classical Voice of New England: Cypress Quartet in Stellar Performance: Ruehr, Schubert
Classical Voice of New England
March 17, 2010
by Patrick Valentino
Surrounded by the vast yet invitingly warm wood beams of the Houghton Chapel & Multifaith Center on the campus of Wellesley College, the Cypress Quartet gave a stellar performance of innovatively balanced program which featured soprano Andrea Matthews and a premiere of a composition by Elena Ruehr. read more »
The Rehearsal Studio: A Literary Connection Overlooked (or just ignored)?
The Rehearsal StudioA place to exercise ideas before writing about them with greater discipline.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
by Stephen Smoliar
At last night's Call & Response recital by the Cypress String Quartet, there was a potentially interesting literary connection that I chose to ignore in my Examiner.com review because there were too many other points I felt were more important. Nevertheless, I believe it still deserves some "examination." It concerns the juxtaposition on Elena Ruehr's new string quartet, Bel Canto, based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Ann Patchett, with Franz Schubert's D. 810 D minor string quartet, best known as "Death and the Maiden." read more »