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Albums independently released on the Cypress String Quartet label:


Cypress Quartet recordings and albums released on other fine labels:

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How She Danced: String Quartets
of Elena Ruehr (CSQ 2010)
Available Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
String Quartet #4 (2005) Commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet
String Quartet #3 (2001) Commissioned by the Rockport C.M.S.
String Quartet #1 (1991) Winner, ASCAP Award

Sample 1: Elena Ruehr, String Quartet #3, Clay Flute

Sample 2: Elena Ruehr, String Quartet #3, How She Danced

The Cypress String Quartet (Cecily Ward, violin; Tom Stone, violin; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) announces the commercial release of How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr on Tuesday, February 23, 2010. The album includes acclaimed Boston-based composer Elena Ruehr’s String Quartets No. 1 (1991), No. 3 (2001), and No. 4 (commissioned by the Cypress Quartet in 2005), and will be available on iTunes, CDBaby.com, Amazon.com, and other major retailers. The disc was produced by Cypress first violinist Cecily Ward and Mark Willsher, and recorded at Skywalker Sound.
Included program notes feature an interview with the artists by Bill McGlaughlin, host of Saint Paul Sunday and Exploring Music.
Download Full Release | Read Reviews | Visit www.elenaruehr.org to learn more about the composer.
$20.00 Pre-Order Today and we'll ship your copy of How She Danced to arrive by February 23rd, the official release date of this brand new recording.
Thank you for supporting the Cypress String Quartet by Buying Direct from the Artists.

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Beethoven Late Quartets, Volume 1 (CSQ 2009)
String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135

Sample 1: Beethoven, String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135, II. Vivace

Sample 2: Beethoven, String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131, VII. Allegro

When people discuss the greatest contributions to the arts in Western civilization, names such as Shakespeare, da Vinci, and Beethoven inevitably arise. Proponents for Beethoven cite his five late quartets, which were the final works that he completed. In this first of three volumes, the Cypress String Quartet brings a fresh voice of humanity and clarity to these monumental works.
Read Reviews
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Benjamin Lees: String Quartets 1, 5 & 6 (Naxos 2009)
String Quartet No.1 (1952)
String Quartet No.5 (2002)
String Quartet No.6 (2005)

Sample: Lees, String Quartet No. 5, III. Quick, quiet

The highly personal style of American composer Benjamin Lees lends his music the lofty grandeur and sardonic wit, not only of Shostakovich but also of the Cubist and Surrealist artists, all of whom he so admires. Lees, who also shares Britten’s refined sense of harmony, delights in contrasts and surprises, enthralling the listener at every turn from the lyrical to the burlesque, the romantic to the brusque.
His fifth string quartet was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of its 101 Great Ensemble Works.
Read Reviews | Read more about Mr. Lees and the music on this recording here.
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Jennifer Higdon (Naxos 2008)
Piano Trio (2003)
Voices (1993)
Impressions (2003)*
*featuring the Cypress String Quartet

Sample: Higdon, Impressions, III."To the Point"

The Cypress String Quartet is featured on this Naxos release of Jennifer Higdon’s chamber music with its recording of Impressions which it commissioned in 2003. Jennifer Higdon describes Impressions as “a musical response to the artists of the Impressionist period in both music (Debussy and Ravel) and painting (Monet and Seurat)”.
Read more about Jennifer Higdon and the music on this recording here.
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Jay Cloidt: Spectral Evidence (MinMax 2007)
eleven windows
Spectral Evidence

Sample: Cloidt, Spectral Evidence, Movement III

Jay Cloidt's latest CD features the premiere studio recordings of two ambitious and diverse works for string quartet, Spectral Evidence and eleven windows, performed by the Cypress String Quartet. Spectral Evidence begins with a straightforward performance of the first two minutes of a Mozart quartet. At first subtly then radically, the piece is broken down into parts and reassembled into a series of ten new movements. Meticulously recorded at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, the music is solely based on the deconstruction and reconstruction of the melodic materials found in the original opening section.
The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Jay Cloidt's exceptional score, a Mozart string quartet and its subtle deconstruction and transformation into something ominous, tracks the choreography every step of the way... the Cypress String Quartet... performs Cloidt's score masterfully."
Read more about Jay Cloidt and the music on this recording here.
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Debussy, Suk & Cotton (CSQ 2005)
Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10
Josef Suk: Barcarolle & Ballade
Jeffery Cotton: String Quartet No. 1

Sample: Debussy: String Quartet in G, Op. 10, I. Animé et très décidé
The music featured on this disk represents the varied interests of the Cypress String Quartet; a “masterpiece”, an overlooked “jewel”, and a Cypress-commissioned quartet. The Debussy Quartet, written in 1893 in Paris, began a revolution in string writing that ushered in the 20th Century. Composed just a few years earlier but worlds away in Prague, the Suk pieces represent the end of the romantic period. The Jeffery Cotton Quartet, composed for the Cypress in 2003, looks back with respectful fascination at the string quartet tradition and leads us on an inspiring journey that ends in the heart of German Cabaret of the 1920's.
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Daniel Asia: Trilogy (Summit 2004)
Woodwind Quintet
String Quartet No.2* (1985)
Brass Quintet
*featuring the Cypress String Quartet

Sample: Asia, String Quartet No.2, IV. Presto possible

Daniel Asia (b. 1953) is a leading member of that talented post-World War II generation of American composers that includes Danielpour, Kernis, Schwantner, and Tower—among many others—who helped turn the tide of stylistic syntax away from the predominant serialist academicism of the 60s and 70s. The Second String Quartet of 1985 shows us Asia writing the kind of freely modified 12-note music one would expect from a pupil of Druckman and Schuller. But already one can sense in this serious and ambitious almost half-hour work an underlying urge to break free of the confines of ideological allegiances, as the movement headings "Cantabile; free and flowing—crisp and energetic" and "Majestic—dancing–majestic" would indicate. This score exhibits the same distinctive traits that would characterize his later and more tonally oriented works: a natural and unfettered thematic fertility coupled with a noticeable economy of content and coherence of form. All three ensembles provide beautifully judged and dynamically shaped readings with a top-drawer acoustic from Summit. All in all, this turns out to be one of the premier releases of American chamber music of 2004.
Read more about Daniel Asia and the music on this recording here.
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Haydn, Ravel & Schulhoff (CSQ 2002)
Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 76 No. 5
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F Major
Ervin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet

Sample: Schulhoff, Five Pieces for String Quartet, V. Tango milonga

This album packages together three distinct and flamboyantly beautiful works. Haydn’s String Quartet in D Major shows him exploring form and structure while examining the depth of emotional experience. Ravel’s String Quartet is one of the most pleasing works in the standard repertoire, filled with exotic influences and invention. The Five Pieces for String Quartet by Ervin Schulhoff are delightful dances, some humorous and some satirical in character. Schulhoff created miniature pictures of popular dances including a Viennese Waltz, an Arabic dance, a Czech folk dance, an evocative Tango and a rollicking Tarantella.

$20.00 Sorry! We are SOLD OUT of this item!

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All Cypress String Quartet recordings engineered by Mark Willsher

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