January 19, 2010
Stake in the Heart
The Cypress Quartet is probably best known for an enterprising commissioning program that by now has added a dozen or so substantial works to the string-quartet literature. It is heartening, then, to see the ensemble stake its claim to the heart of the literature that it didn’t engender itself.
A disc of late-Beethoven quartets on Cypress’ own label — encouragingly subtitled Volume 1 — presents Opp. 131 and 135 in performances of high polish and considerable subtlety. The Cypresses’ fine technical control and uniform sweetness of sound are known quantities. (The players credit part of that sound, in the disc’s notes, to their access to a remarkable set of instruments. There are a Stradivari, a Bergonzi, and two generations of Amatis to be heard here.)
In music like Op. 131’s opening fugue or Op. 135’s extraordinary slow movement, that sound and that control make for near-ideal performances; even the ensemble’s slight remoteness of emotional affect suits the music perfectly. In other places, I confess, the discipline and the smoothness of surface do become a little wearing. This is fearsomely impressive ensemble playing — taut, crisp, and only on the rarest occasions imperfectly in tune. But there is more visceral fun to be gotten out of a thing like (say) Op. 135’s jigsaw puzzle of a scherzo than the Cypresses find, however neatly they do fit it together.
Listen to the Music
Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
Quartet in F Major, Op.135 - III
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
And yet there’s something about the deadpan Cypress approach that accentuates the sheer weirdness of this music, in an oddly captivating way. The outer movements of Op. 135 (especially the last, taken a bit under the usual tempo and kept there with positively maddening determination) have an eerie quality in the Cypresses’ hands; every time Beethoven makes a feint toward Haydnesque lightness, something in the very tone of the performance disabuses you. I am not sure I quite agree with all the interpretive decisions here; the recording is definitely food for thought, though, and I look forward to what are presumably two more volumes.
Recent CD Reviews
-
Joyce Yang: Collage
-
Pacifica Quartet: The Soviet Experience
-
-
New Babylon
-
András Schiff: Geistervariationen
Comments
Ms. Thomson...
Thanks for your review of the Cypress' performance.
You state: "And yet there’s something about the deadpan Cypress approach..."
While I am not familiar with these performers, it seems as though you ought to provide some support for your statement that the group has a "deadpan approach". Surely some folks would see your characterization as negative, and you are entitled to that point of view. Still, I'd recommend that you tell the reader more about WHY you have chosen the "deadpan" label...
These quartet's were written at the end of Beethoven's life; perhaps the performers are communicating an important message with their approach?
Hank
http://www.myclassicalnotes.com
Hank,
What I mean by "deadpan" is a sort of "what's-in-the-score-is-what-you-get" attitude. It is not necessarily a negative, as I tried to make clear. In music as enigmatic as this, as often as not quartets that try to impose their personalities conscientiously on the music end up making a fearful hash of it. It can be (as you correctly point out) an interpretive choice, and even a shrewd one, to "let the music speak for itself," as opposed to taking pains to speak for it. It's an interpretive approach that people generally call "bland" if they hate it, and "truthful" if they like it. I like it myself in some places, which in fact was why I mentioned it.
My sense is that we have in these last quartets of Beethoven, music that is revolutionary! Music that forshadows what will develop in musical composition and harmony many years after the death Beethoven in 1824. There likely are all sorts of books on the last quartets of this genius; And there are many recordings by world - famous groups that could provide futher insight for you.
If I might suggest, characterizing this music as "the sheer weirdness of this music..." is not appropriate. If you had said that *you* felt weird, that would have been OK, because you did not understand it. But I assure you: the MUSIC is not weird...
Hank
http://www.myclassicalnotes.com
Hank, I assure you that I know this music very well indeed, but not ever (I hope) enough to fail to be continually startled by it.
By "weirdness" I meant that for someone who knew string quartets up until this point — the players and listeners for whom Beethoven was writing, in other words — there are things here that make no immediate sense, and are meant not to make any immediate sense. If you aren't taken aback repeatedly, there's some of the context and indeed content of the music that you're not catching.
I do know what it feels like to know the contours of a piece intimately, so that everything in it is comfortable, natural, "just right," "it couldn't possibly go any other way." It's like a shoe that fits its wearer so well, after long use, that anything else just feels wrong. (It's not a perfect analogy; you have to imagine shoes that alter feet after long acquaintance as much as feet do shoes. But the idea is that the two are each changed by long proximity to one another.)
There are quartets who have in this way "grown close to" late Beethoven, come to their own intimate understandings of how the music works. (Not, you understand, the same understandings for each ensemble!) And that is a great and mysterious thing, a tremendously valuable thing.
But it's also valuable to see the music "un-worn-in" — not, you understand, uninterpreted, not unloved, but also not loved into such an intensely personal shape that you can't see where the original seams and angles were. That is what I was trying to say about the Cypresses: They helped me see the seams and the angles that my own familiarity smoothed over. They helped me understand the music better.
Hope that helps,
Michelle