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The Cypress String Quartet opened the UMKC Signature Series with an ambitious program that featured mature works of Mozart, Bartók and Beethoven to a nearly full house last Saturday night at White Recital Hall. 

Formed in 1996 in San Francisco, the Cypress consists of violinists Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violist Ethan Filner, and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel.  The award-winning Quartet has made a name for itself as a "teaching Quartet", having introduced 100,000 students around the country to chamber music.  Cellist Kloetzel explained to the audience that the music on the program was written when the composers were "at the top of their game."

The program opened to the silvery gleaming chords of Mozart's String Quartet in D Major, K. 575, which Kloetzel noted is known as the "Cello Quartet" due to the new way in which Mozart composed to feature the cello part prominently.  King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, a cellist, commissioned Mozart's last set of quartets in 1789.  The Cypress Quartet approached this work from the concept of tonal elegance.  Although their polished sound was compelling in the opening statement, as the work progressed the Quartet seemed to be confined within the constraints of producing a beautiful sonority at the expense of musical expression.  In the Menuetto movement the accompanying Alberti figure in the upper voices overpowered the cello solo; the cello part was, in fact, dynamically over-shadowed for most of the work.  Despite that balance issue and some intonation glitches, notable throughout the evening was the excellence with which the Quartet matched timbre, as heard when measures of melody were passed from one instrument to the next.  To one not watching the exchange, the Quartet sounded as a single instrument.

The Cypress demonstrated excellent tonal diversity for each work performed.  It served up a fantastic array of colors and nuances of dark expression in Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 6.  Violist Filner noted in his introductory commentary that it was the last work that Bartók composed in Europe in 1939, before he fled his homeland at the onset of the Second World War.  The first movement opened to the soulful "Mesto" (mournful or sorrowful) theme played hauntingly by Filner in a pure viola voice that was almost without vibrato.  He was soon joined in a forceful unison statement by the Quartet that wound into a whirlwind of energy.  The second movement began with a reiteration of the Mesto theme, this time delivered by cellist Kloetzel in a rich, but anguished tone that bore no resemblance to the tonal character she had employed in the Mozart Quartet.  Countered by a melody in the first violin, and accompanied by spooky tremolos from the second violin and cello, it morphed into a savage march-type movement of jarring dissonance and jerky rhythms.  The third movement opening Mesto, sung by violinist Ward, led into a Burletta (burlesque) in bizarre language that underscored Bartók's dark creation, with the violins playing dissonances a quarter note apart.  A noisy pizzicato woke the audience suddenly from the lull of the middle section reverie, and trombone-like slides put a sound to satire as material from the first movement was recalled.  The final movement of the Bartók quartet, its opening Mesto stated somberly by all four instruments, was an elegiac expression of sorrow and profound loss.  Like Brahms before him in the slow Mesto movement of the Horn Trio, Bartók similarly channeled the depths of his grief during the final illness of his mother into the composition of the slow movement of his last quartet.  Performed by the Cypress in gut-wrenching perfection, it sent the audience into the intermission from an experience of somber contemplation.

The final half of the evening brought a reassuring return to tonality through the deeply satisfying reading of the last quartet composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.  Once again the Cypress changed its sound, this time to embody the lush romantic swells and sweet singing melodies that were swapped among the quartet in uncanny match of timbre.  The second movement Vivace was executed with tight energy that ended in a playful exaggerated lifting of bows after the last surprise fortissimo chord.  The high moment of the entire evening arrived with the opening swell of the third movement that took me aback with its palpable expression of tenderness.  Violinist Ward played its sostenuto theme above an exceptionally organic chordal accompaniment, building subtly in intensity as she passed it to cellist Kloetzel who brought the movement to its sublime height.  After such beauty where does one turn?  Well, Beethoven seemed to be at a loss to answer that question, as well.  In his score he titled the final movement "The difficult decision" and posed these questions over its thematic material: "Must it be?" and in emphatic answer, "It must be!"  The Cypress brought this music to its energized conclusion in playful brio.

An encore ensued: the Finale movement from Dvorak's String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96, the "American".  A brand new palette of colors sprang forth from the Cypress with violinist Ward dishing up a downright slurpy tone before the Quartet brought the evening to a second bravura ending to the sounds of marvelously tight ensemble playing.

The Cypress Quartet will perform in the area again on October 28^th with a program titled A Celebration of Mendelssohn, to commemorate his bicentennial anniversary.  The concert at the Lied Center in Lawrence will also feature a new work by Kevin Puts.  For tickets call 785.864.2787 or online www.lied.ku.edu/buy-tickets/cypress-string-quartet.shtml. 

REVIEW:
UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance: Signature Series
Cypress String Quartet
Saturday, October 10, 2009
White Recital Hall, UMKC Campus
4949 Cherry Street, Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-235-6222 or online www.tickets.cto.umkc.edu

By Gayle G. Hathorne

Classical and Vocal Contributor (Past writer)