NACO is going to release four double CDS packed with all four Robert Schumann symphonies, all four Brahms symphonies and they “will be glued together with music by Clara,” he said. This will include her piano concerto and her piano sonata performed by the Venezuelan pianist Gabriella Montero, a piano trio featuring members of NACO and her Romances for violin and piano with Angela Hewitt and Yosuke Kawasaki, NACO’s concertmaster. The latter has already been recorded. Shelley said there will be songs by Clara Schumann recorded as well.
(Ethan was a sub in the viola section for the NACO recording of Brahms Symphony No.1)
With this celebratory, Grammy-nominated and JUNO-winning release completing his 14-year tenure as Music Director of the TSO, Peter Oundjian conducts an exquisite Vaughan Williams program, supported by an all-Canadian cast of star soloists, recorded live at Roy Thomson Hall in November 2017.
In the program notes for the concert preceding the recording, Oundjian declared: "Ralph Vaughan Williams was possibly England’s most significant composer, and he is a personal favourite of mine. This [recording] presents some of his finest works, featuring soloists from the Orchestra as well as some of Canada's most notable solo artists, and the Elmer Iseler Singers…. The lyrical and engaging Oboe Concerto is rarely heard, but it is one of his most inspired works. Serenade to Music showcases his exquisite vocal writing, which also figures prominently in the ravishingly beautiful Flos Campi, so surprisingly scored for solo viola, choir, and chamber orchestra. The Piano Concerto is more dramatic, with a juggernaut opening and a brilliant fugal finale."
(Ethan was a sub in the TSO viola section for this recording project)
Included in this new 2-CD set - released internationally on May 6, 2016 on Avie Records - are original, extensive and insightful program notes written by Jan Swafford, author of "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph." Jan Swafford's biographies of composers Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and 'fate's hammer', his ever-encroaching deafness. At the time of his death he was so widely celebrated that over ten thousand people attended his funeral.This book is a biography of Beethoven the man and musician, not the myth, and throughout, Swafford - himself a composer - offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.
More Information on CSQ-AVIE releases: Avie Records website
Antonín Dvořák: Cypresses | String Quartet No.13 in G Major, Op.106
The acclaimed Cypress String Quartet plays the cycle of miniatures, inspired by unrequited love, from which the ensemble takes its name. More than three decades after writing Cypresses, Dvořák had turned from lovesick to homesick; a masterful demonstration of the intimate conversation of chamber music, the G major Quartet is also a song of thanksgiving for the composer’s return from the US to his native land. Previous discs from the CSQ have been praised by Gramophone for the ensemble's "intoxicating and lyrical" playing and "sheer instrumental mastery."
SUMMARY:
Award-winning composer Elena Ruehr’s AVIE debut, Averno (AV 2263), introduced three of her big and bold works for choir and orchestra. For her follow up, Ruehr scales down to intimate solo and chamber works for strings and piano, all with references to older music in some way. Baroque elements infuse Klein Suite for solo violin, Prelude Variations for viola and piano, and The Scarlatti Effect for piano trio. The three movements of the jazz-tinged Second Violin Sonata, are dedicated to people who have influenced Ruehr’s work: her composition teacher William Bolcom, jazz teacher Eddie Russ, and Oscar Peterson whom Ruehr met on New Year’s Eve 1980. Adrienne and Amy was written in honour of the pioneering American composer Amy Beach and her biographer Adrienne Fried Block. The virtuosic and lyrical title track for solo cello was inspired by Nobel Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani school pupil and education activist. Boston-based Ruehr, whose wide-ranging works are performed from coast to coast, teaches at MIT. Last year she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Following three acclaimed releases for AVIE surveying works by Dvořák, Schubert and contemporary Americans, the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet turns to the seminal string quartets of Beethoven, performing the five quartets from the composer’s middle period. Formed in 1996, the Cypresses added Beethoven to their repertoire early on. Their signature sound, which is clear and transparent, built up from the bottom register and layered like a pyramid, lends itself beautifully to the Middle String Quartets – the three “Rasumovskys,” the “Harp,” and the “Serioso.”
Included in this new box set - released internationally on November 11, 2014 on Avie Records - are original, extensive and insightful program notes written by Nicholas Mathews, professor at UC Berkeley.
Download Liner Notes Here (.pdf) / (.doc)
The year 2016 heralded both the Cypress String Quartet’s 20th anniversary and the group’s valedictory season. With this final album, the CSQ completes its remarkable legacy in an innovative flourish, recording the two Brahms Sextets in both high-resolution digital and analogue formats, live before a studio audience at Skywalker Sound, where they share the Scoring Stage with long-time friends and collaborators Barry Shiffman (viola) and Zuill Bailey (cello). CD booklet includes original Program Notes by Jan Swafford. Available January 6, 2017.
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 three-disc set, reissued here on Avie Records, May 6 2016, the Cypress String Quartet brings a fresh voice of humanity and clarity to these monumental works.
The final disc completed for this set includes Beethoven's String Quartet in E-flat Major, Opus. 127 and his String Quartet in A Minor, Opus 132. These performances were recorded at Skywalker Sound by engineer Mark Willsher and produced by Cypress first violinist, Cecily Ward.
The Cypress String Quartet (Cecily Ward, violin; Tom Stone, violin; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) is pleased to announce that on May 13, 2014 AVIE Records will release their new album Schubert: String Quintet and Quartettsatz, recorded in collaboration with the Quartet's good friend and renowned cellist Gary Hoffman in January 2013 at Skywalker Sound.
The Cypress String Quartet debuted on AVIE with a recording of their namesake work, Dvořák’s “Cypresses” coupled with the composer’s expansive G major Quartet, No. 13 (AV 2275), “a lovely performance,” according to International Record Review. The Czech composer features again in the ensemble’s American Album with his beloved “American” Quartet, which shares the program with Barber’s String Quartet, featuring the famous Adagio central movement,”Two Sketches Based on Indian Themes” by Charles Griffes, and the single-movement Lento assai by Pulitzer-prize winning composer Kevin Puts. This recording is a stunning appreciation of the American spirit from 1893 to the present. - See more at: www.avie-records.com
Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor, Op.10
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F Major
Ervin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet
To commemorate their 15th Anniversary, Cypress String Quartet is releasing a compilation disc of favorite recordings. Celebrate with us!
Jay Cloidt: Spectral Evidence
eleven windows
Spectral Evidence
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.
The Cypress String Quartet released 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.
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.
purchase album on Naxos (CD)
purchase album on Amazon (CD / MP3)
purchase album on iTunes
Featuring: Amernet String Quartet & Cypress String Quartet
Together, these three quartets give a wonderful view of the progression and development of this seminal composer’s compositional style generally, and in the medium of the string quartet genre specifically.
String Quartet No. 1, written in 1975, is a highly eclectic work in its stylistic inflections. In five movements of highly varied emotional content, it mixes the lyrical with the fantastic, the hyper-present with the remote, the galactically spatial with the intensely rhythmic.
String Quartet No. 2, from 1985, is in four contrasting movements, with much of it about a theme and its variations. Like the earlier string quartet, it mixes the ghostly and nightmarish with the serene and peaceful, as it pushes to the fullest the emotional and physical range of the string quartet.
String Quartet No. 3 (The Seer), commissioned by the Cyrpress String Quartet in 2006 as part of their call and response series, takes its title from Adolph Gottlieb’s eponymous painting, that sees quite analogous to my quartet. The works are mosaic-like in their larger structures. Seemingly incongruous shapes build up a pleasing and articulate form. Certain iconic shapes or patterns run through the work, while others stand in isolation. This quartet accepts certain influences from popular music which are absorbed into its more complex texture and language. While these associations don’t leap out, they are present, even if only on a subterranean level.
Praised for their “intelligence” and “immensely satisfying” playing by the New York Times, the Amernet String Quartet has garnered recognition as one of today’s exceptional string quartets and are Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University in Miami.
In their 20 years on the concert stage, Cypress String Quartet (CSQ) have been praised by Gramophone for their “artistry of uncommon insight and cohesion,” and by the NY Times for “tender, deeply expressive” interpretations.
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.
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.
Daniel Asia: Trilogy
Woodwind Quintet
String Quartet No.2* (1985) featuring the Cypress String Quartet
Brass Quintet
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.
MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD Everyone Deserves Music (2003 UK 13-track CD album. Michael Franti was originally in the bands Beatnigs & Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy before he joined this band and he has toured with many artists including U2.This album represents the most connected & developed work he has ever done he composed many of the songs from the guitar up. This album is more accurately well-crafted and eclectic collection of political protest songs and power ballads.
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
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.
Buy this album direct from the artists (digital download only) at cypressquartet.bandcamp.com
John Latartara, composer
”Penetrations” - sonic explorations in sexuality
Recorded at New England Conservatory, ~2000
For Guggenheim Fellow composer Elena Ruehr the appeal of the string quartet lies in the ability of four instruments to express an infinite range of emotional possibilities, to communicate across time. Her six string quartets attest to her enthusiasm for musical time-travel: echoes of Perotin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvořák, Schoenberg and jazz are there, but the musical language is purely her own. Elena’s Six String Quartets are a magnum opus, three of them commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet, two by the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and one an ASCAP Award winner.