New Classical Tracks: A Gift of Time

The Cypress String Quartet with Cellist Gary Hoffman - Schubert: String Quintet & Quartettsatz (Avie)

Imagine a pyramid of sound. The rich, sultry cello provides the base with a chocolaty viola and a pair of translucent violins layering one on top of the other. That's the signature sound of the Cypress Quartet. They formed 18 years ago in San Francisco, starting their career with intense readings of chorales by J.S Bach. Since then, they've made 10 recordings, and have also commissioned and premiered more than 30 new works.

Cellist Jennifer Kloetzel says the past becomes the present on the ensemble's latest release, which features two major works for strings by the 19th-century Viennese composer Franz Schubert: his 'Quartettsatz,' and the String Quintet in C Major. "You know," Jennifer says, "our work with living composers often has informed our work with these older composers we can no longer talk to because you realize the struggles the composers go through as they're writing or the inspirations that they draw upon when I'm talking to a living composer. And then I go back and I think about that in Schubert's time — what was Schubert going through, how was he feeling during this? And it gives me a fresh perspective on him as a composer or on Beethoven as a composer."

Franz Schubert's String Quintet in C Major was one of the last works he composed before his death at age 31. Jennifer says the circumstances under which he wrote this work definitely inspires the Cypress String Quartet's performance. "He was really ill, he was really impoverished, he had little to no success, especially at his string music during his lifetime," Jennifer says. "And as far as he knew — he knew he was dying and that was that. He would have no idea that he'd become so championed and so famous many years after his death. There's something magical — he rose above it. He almost had a foot in another world as he was writing this music."

Violinist Tom Stone adds that even though Schubert was nearing the end of his life, he was still developing as a composer. "I think the quintet marks a turn of direction of [Shubert's] writing where he was really interested in vocal duets, more like you'd have in an opera than you'd have in a single song," Tom observes. "You hear that a lot in the first movement between the two cellos and also between the violins. And the last movement, to me, has a lot in common, especially towards the end, with comic opera. So you hear him going in a more operatic direction. I wish he would have made it longer, I wish he would have kept writing so we could have heard where his writing could have gone."

The Cypress Quartet have performed Schubert's Quintet with more than a dozen cellists over the years. For this recording, Tom says they found the perfect addition to their group with cellist Gary Hoffman. "We already had a voice as a quartet and we didn't want to approach the piece as a quartet plus a guest," Tom says. "We wanted to become a real quintet — both integrate him into the group and also change the group through his presence and personality. And so that took us several years to get to — of many performances in lots of different places. And I think when we finally felt we got there, we decided, hey, let's record this.

"So it becomes an instrument of five — we become one voice," Jennifer confirms, noting that this changes her role as the cellist of the quartet. "You know what's also complicated about this kind of formation is that I'm usually the bass of the quartet. So I have to give up that role and move up one step on the ladder there and he becomes the bass. So there aren't too many people I'm completely comfortable handing over those reins to, but Gary is one of them."

Schubert's Quintet in C Major is considered to be one of the most important pieces of chamber music ever written. Tom says the beautiful, slow movement is one reason it's so special. "The Adagio has three outer sections which are kind of mirrors of each other," Tom explains, "and then in the middle it has a kind of impassioned duet and I think in the outer sections in particular, Schubert does this incredible thing, where he has this chorale that has almost a religious quality and above it he has kind of a conversation between the lowest voice in the cello and the highest voice in the first violin. And there's a kind of spirituality and intimacy to what Schubert's able to create that's really unlike anything else I've ever heard in music. And then in the middle of the piece, he gives us a contrast of a kind of impassioned, dramatic duet that's also like nothing I've ever heard. In the juxtaposition of those two types of music … I think is just amazing. There's a lot going on but the music moves very slowly. So it has a way of suspending time that is very different from modern life."

"Schubert has a kind of alchemy," Jennifer adds. "When the music is being performed or listened to, something does suspend. Something very magical happens. And even if it's your first time hearing it, the melodies, they speak to you. I know people who've heard it once and they go away singing some of the melodies. And if you stay a little longer with the music, it carries you along. I think you do kind of lose time with Schubert."

As they perform these chamber works by Schubert on their new recording, The Cypress String Quartet with cellist Gary Hoffman offer you the gift of time.

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