In the second of three concerts in their season-opening Salon Series weekend, the Cypress String Quartet looked comfortably at home in the Joe Henderson Lab at SFJazz. The ensemble’s offices are only a few blocks away. “So this was an easy commute,” said cellist Jennifer Kloetzel.
The relaxed vibe continued between each piece on the program. Second violinist Tom Stone charmingly confessed to an early distaste for Bartók (“a horrible composer”) before the scales fell from his ears and he discovered the “essential musical truths” contained in the string quartets and other works by the Hungarian master. First violinist Cecily Ward chatted about each of the four instruments onstage, noting that the 1701 fiddle she plays was once owned by the mother of James Bond author Ian Fleming.
Translucent silver window shades cozily and elegantly closed off the ground-floor Lab space from the traffic and pedestrian flow on Franklin Street. A wine and chocolate reception followed the concert. The table, in all senses, was invitingly set.
The musical meal itself, it’s unfortunate to report, left much to be desired. Marked by playing that was technically patchy, formally wayward, and artistically fuzzy, the concert engaged only in passing fits and starts and remained erratic throughout.
Two Beethoven quartets bookended the evening, which was presented under the somewhat arbitrary rubric of “Slavic Soundscapes.” While Bartók’s credentials need no defense, a Russian theme in the third-movement trio section and the Razumovsky label on Op. 59, No. 2 were the only faint claims to be made for Beethoven’s Slavic musical character.
But never mind. The Cypress might well make more of their Soundscape concept in the season’s subsequent Slavic-themed Salon Series concerts.
This one opened with Beethoven’s String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 74 (“Harp”). Things began promisingly, with some poised and crisp phrasing and the harp-like pizzicatos, sounding ripe and sweet in the viola and cello lines. A little shimmer of narrative anticipation built as the plucking picked up the pace. Ward tossed off some fast and furious double-stops.
But intonation problems, a recurring pattern, cropped up pretty early as well. The Adagio sounded dry and often aimless, without any shaping idea. It wasn’t until late in the third movement that the Cypress showed much sinew or dynamism. The theme-and-variations finale felt more dutifully sequential than organically developmental.
An early lyricism and drive in the opening Moderato of Bartók String Quartet No. 2, Op 17 soon dissipated, with more intonation difficulties and a murky sense of the movement’s contrapuntal underpinnings. Kloetzel brought things to a sweet and poignant close.
Some of the best playing of the night came in the middle movement. The Cypress caught lightning in a bottle here, with jagged, angular passages; the heat of Bartók’s manic strain; the far-off glimmer of a squeeze box folk tune and an overall air of assurance, conviction, and intuitive communication that can give a string quartet performance such an intimate, immediate charge.
The final Lento, expansive but lugubrious, was an unhappy reversion. Beethoven’s String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 filled the second half of the program. Once again, pleasing touches and passages took their turns with ragged or merely routine musicianship. The long first movement rose to some assertive climaxes. Kloetzel and violist Ethan Filner announced the syncopated theme in the second movement handsomely. The final movement set off at an exciting, rapid-canter gait. But character tended to leach away, with a thin ensemble sound, meek accents, and unpersuasive phrasing.
In a final note on the evening’s presentation, the Cypress players seemed dressed for different occasions. Kloetzel wore a dramatic black dress with a plunging V-neckline. Filner, to her left, chose a workaday shirt and sweater. Stone wore a tie. Ward was in pants.
In one sense, what does it matter? But because the evening lacked a defining sense of musical cohesion, the clash in styles served to emphasize that deficit. Appearances, regrettably, were not, deceiving.