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Stake in the Heart

Michelle Dulak Thomson on January 19, 2010

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.

Beethoven: Late String Quartets
Volume I

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

Quartet in C-Sharp Minor, Op.131 - I
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.