Call & Response 2014 Listening Guide
**To be taught PRIOR to Cypress String Quartet visit**
The Long and the Short of it: Exploring Expansion and Brevity
Franz Schubert, Anton Webern, and George Tsontakis
Call & Response 2014 Concert
March 14 | 2014 | 8 p.m.
Marines’ Memorial Theatre | San Francisco
Call & Response: An Ongoing Process of Inspiration
“Call & Response” was born out of the Cypress String Quartet's commitment to presenting music
as a dynamic and ongoing process of inspiration. The term “Call & Response” is usually
associated with Jazz and Gospel music: the idea being that a musician places a musical “call” to
which another musician “responds”. In this program the call is that of the Cypress String Quartet
searching for connections across musical, historical, and social boundaries. The response is the
creation of a new work by a contemporary composer and the creation of a new and diverse concert
audience.
Following over two dozen educational outreach presentations before students of all levels and
communities, the Cypress Quartet performs the Call & Response concert at Marines’ Memorial
Theatre in San Francisco. Scholarship tickets permit participating students to attend the public
performance free of charge.
This year, for the 15th Anniversary of Call & Response, the theme of Call & Response is “The
Long and the Short of It”, and we will explore how both brief and epic pieces of music can
express worlds of emotions. In order to delve more deelpy into this concept, the Call & Response
concert will feature four very different works by composers Franz Schubert, Anton Webern, and
George Tsontakis. Indeed, the expansive and highly romantic nature of Schubert’s G Major
Quartet contrasted with the concise and tightly-knit works by Anton Webern, at first glance, seem
to be on opposite ends of the musical spectrum. And yet, while these three composers use
disparate musical building blocks (spare texture vs. thick texture, lush harmonies vs. clarion
melodies etc.), their goals are the same: to express emotion and create a piece of music that
moves people.
How does each composer use the limitations and opportunities of his musical language to
tell a story or express emotions? Long-winded or concise, which one speaks to us more
directly? Can emotional concepts be expressed in different ways effectively? These are
some of the questions that this listening guide will strive to bring to the table. This listening guide
will also help students understand each of these works in their own right and also (for the more
advanced students) place these works in the political and cultural contexts in which they were
written.
By integrating the new with the familiar, “Call & Response” explores how contemporary music is an
evolution of older works. The outreach presentations, pre-concert lectures, and other activities that
surround the series bring music into the community and help audiences to understand the creative
process. With this series, the Cypress String Quartet is creating a public forum where a broad
group of people comes together and shares in the universal experience of music.
Class Outline
A. Introduction: Apples and Oranges
a. Music Example 1: Webern, 5 Movements for String Quartet, I. Heftig bewegt
b. Music Example 2: Schubert, String Quartet No. 15, II. Andante un poco moto
c. Activity: Listening for similarities and differences
B. Schubert and Webern: Romanticism to Expressionism
a. Romanticism
b. Music Example 3: Schubert, String Quartet No. 15, I. Allegro molto moderato
c. Late-Romanticism
d. Music Example 4: Webern, Langsamer Satz
e. Expressionism
f. Music Example 5: Webern, Five Movements for String Quartet
C. Expansion and Brevity in Poetry
a. Expansion: Ode
b. Brevity: Haiku
D. Expansion and Brevity in Painting
a. Expansion: Hudson River School Landscape of Thomas Hill
b. Brevity: Miniature Portraits of John Smart
E. Conclusion
Appendices
I.
Glossary
II.
Extra Expressionist Information
III.
Composer and Quartet Biographies
IV.
Cultural and Historical Development: Classical to Modernism
A. Introduction: Apples and Oranges
When we use the idiom “it’s like comparing apples and oranges”, we are usually describing two
things that are very different. After all, oranges are a type of citrus, whereas apples are part of the
pome family. However, with a little extra brain power, you can see some similarities between these
two things. They are both sweet, nutritious, and brightly colored; they both come in many varietals,
they both are grown on trees and they are both delicious, though some people prefer one over the
other. Perhaps the biggest similarity is that they are both fruit. Music can much the same way!
ACTIVITY: Break the class up into 2 groups. One group will listen for differences between the
two musical examples, while the other will listen for similarities. Encourage students to listen for:
orchestration, playing technique, harmony, mood, melody, and texture. After listening to the
musical examples, each group will have one representative who will describe either the differences
or similarities. Hold a mini-debate.
MUSIC EXAMPLE 1: Anton Webern 5 Movements for String Quartet, I. Heftig bewegt
MUSIC EXAMPLE 2: Franz Schubert G Major String Quartet, II. Andante un poco moto
On the surface, Schubert and Webern are much like apples and oranges: one is lush and lyrical,
the other, austere and disjointed. However, what lies behind these surface differences is much the
same—each composer tries to express their musical vision through different harmonies, textures,
and melodies.
Perhaps the biggest difference between these two pieces is that they are on two ends of the same
spectrum. At 50 minutes, Schubert’s String Quartet Number 15 in G Major is one of the lengthiest
string quartets in the repertoire, while Webern’s 5 Movements for String Quartet is just under 12
minutes! During the rest of this listening guide, we will be examining other types of art which all
use the same medium to achieve very different effects. Before we get to this, however, let’s take
a look at the cultural circumstances for the music of both Schubert and Webern.
B. Schubert and Webern: Romanticism Through Expressionism1
ROMANTICISM: The term applied to music of the nineteenth century. Romantic music had looser
and more extended forms, greater experimentation with harmony and texture, richly expressive
and memorable melodies. This movement could be seen not only in music, but also in literature
and art. Characteristics of romanticism included strong emotions and feelings, awe of nature,
celebration of the individual (interest in heroic individuals), the importance of imagination, and
transcending conventional limits in pursuit of deeper truths.
MUSIC EXAMPLE 3: Franz Schubert String Quartet No. 15, I. Allegro molto moderato
FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS, PLEASE REPLACE SECTION B WITH “CULTURAL AND
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT: CLASSICAL TO MODERNISM”
1
DISCUSSION: Why is this movement a good example of romanticism? What are the musical
characteristics of romanticism?
PAINTING EXAMPLE 1: Casper David Friedrich Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
POETRY EXAMPLE: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, “Pater Profundis” (deep region) 1808
As the rocky chasm at my feet
On the deep abyss weighs at rest,
As a thousand gleaming streams flow
To the terrible plunge of the flood’s foam,
As with its own great strength
The trunk is born up into the air—
So is almighty Love
That forms all, preserves all.
There is about me a wild rushing,
As if forest and rocky ground shook,
And yet there rose, in lovely sound,
The waters to the abyss,
Called as it were to water the valley;
The lightning that flaming struck
To clear the atmosphere,
Took the poison and vapour in its bosom—
They are Love’s messangers, they will tell
What ever-creating surrounds us.
My inner being it too must charm
Where the spirit, confused, cold,
Tormented in the limits of dull senses,
Feels the sharp pain of chains.
O God! Quieten my thoughts,
Bring light to my needy heart!
DISCUSSION: This is an excerpt from the last scene of Faust, a long epic poem based on a
German legend, in which a man goes to extraordinary means to achieve his personal goals. What
are the subjects and feelings in the Faust excerpt? Are these similar to those identified as part of
romanticism?
As the nineteenth century waned, romanticism continued to reign supreme. Harmonies became
bigger, and lusher. Pieces became longer and more emotionally extreme. Romanticism
encouraged composers to seek individual paths for expressing intense emotions, such as
melancholy, longing, or joy. Composers respected conventions of form or harmony to a point, but
their imagination drove them to trespass limits and explore new realms of sound. Anton Webern’s
Langsamer Satz, written in 1905, is a wonderful example of extreme romanticism. Written after a
hike with his soon-to-be wife in the Austrian wilderness, Langsamer Satz encompasses many of
the elements of developed romanticism—extended chromatic harmonies, natural inspirations, and
love.
MUSIC EXAMPLE 4: Anton Webern, Langsamer Satz
DISCUSSION: How does this piece differ from the Schubert movements you have heard? What
emotions come up for you during this piece? How does it relate to the excerpt from Faust or the
Friedrich painting? Do the musical phrases surprise you or meet your expectations? Are all the
phrases the same length? Is the harmony very chromatic?
EXPRESSIONISM: Early-twentieth-century term derived from art, in which music avoids all
traditional forms of “beauty” in order to express deep personal feelings through exaggerated
gestures angular melodies, and extreme dissonance.
As Webern developed his own compositional style, he scaled back from the large ensembles and
forms of the Romantic period and distilled the emotions to create miniature pieces of a more
abstract nature. The Five Pieces for String Quartet are an example of this expressionist stye in
which grand emotions are expressed in short outbursts and sweet lyrical lines. Rather than trying
to fit his musical ideas into a prescribed form, Webern used all of the notes and techniques at his
disposal to craft unique personal expressions with a variety of colors and harmonies.
MUSIC EXAMPLE 5: Anton Webern, Five Pieces for String Quartet
Is this music challenging to listen to? Why or why not? Why do you think that this piece is so
short? Do you think it would be possible to write a long expressionistic work? Why might that be
hard to do?
Much like the three pieces we have explored above, examples of conciseness and expansiveness
exist in other artistic genres as well. For the latter part of this listening guide, we will examine other
examples of this phenomenon in other genres. While reviewing these examples, have your
students think about whether expansiveness or brevity are more emotionally effective for them.
What is interesting about each example? Can compact art works be more effective than extensive
works? Why?
C. Poetry: Odes and Haikus
______________________________________________________________________________
An ode is a long lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of
exalted or enthusiastic emotion. Frequently, a lyric ode is in praise of, or dedicated to someone or
something which captures the poet’ interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode.
Interestingly, odes had a resurgence during the Romantic era around the same time as when
Schubert composed String Quartet No. 15. Why do you think this may have happened?
POETRY EXAMPLE 2: John Keats, “Ode to Autumn”
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad mayfind
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner though dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
What about this poem reminds you of the Schubert quartet? What about the language of this
poem makes it effective?
A haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry that uses sensory language to capture a feeling or
image. They are often inspired by an element of nature, a moment of beauty or a poignant
experience.
POETRY EXAMPLE 3: Basho
An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
Splash! Silence again.
Why is the language of this haiku so effective? Does the sharpness and exactness of the
language help convey the feeling? How is this akin to the expressionist work by Webern? Do you
prefer the ode or the haiku? Why? Do you prefer Schubert or Webern’s musical language?
D. Painting: Landscapes and Miniatures
As in poetry and music, art can differ greatly in size while delivering the same emotional punch.
Below are two examples of this. The first painting is by American painter Thomas Hill, who was a
member of the Hudson River School of artists. The Hudson River School forged the first selfconsciously American landscape vision, grounded in the exploration of the natural world as a
source of spiritual renewal. Does this remind you of anything we have discussed earlier in this
listening guide? Much like Schubert’s musical works and Keat’s literary ones, this painting reflects
a feeling of grandeur and expansiveness.
PAINTING EXAMPLE 2: Thomas Hill, View of the Yosemite Valley
A miniature is exactly what you would imagine: a small painting that is frequently worn on a
necklace or bracelet. These miniatures were meant to be kept close to one’s person much like the
photos in a wallet today! Look at the detail on these two portraits by miniaturist John Smart—what
do you know about the person from this portrait? Are you more drawn to the landscapes of the
Hudson River School artists or these tiny paintings? Why?
PAINTING EXAMPLE 3: John Smart, Portrait miniature of Mrs. Russell, nee Cox
PAINTING EXAMPLE 4: John Smart, An Indian Prince, 1788
E. Conclusions
Though all of these works are very different, it is important to realize that beauty can be found in
large and small packages. Through very different styles and voices, these composers strove to
express their emotions. During the concert on March 14th, think about how composer George
Tsontakis responds to these ideas. Does his musical style seem to more like Webern or like
Schubert? How does his musical style influence the length and design of his composition? How
does his piece fit into the cultural context of our own era? Can you hear any references to either of
the “Call” works?
Appendix I: Glossary
Chamber music: music played by a small group of musicians. Originally, chamber music was
written to be played in a smaller chamber as opposed to a large ballroom or church
Consonance: Interval or chord that has a stable, harmonious sound.
Dissonance: Two or more notes sounding together to produce a discord, or a sound that needs to
be resolved to a consonance.
Expressionism: Early-twentieth-century term derived from art, in which music avoids all
traditional forms of “beauty” in order to express deep personal feelings through exaggerated
gestures, angular melodies, and extreme dissonance.
Haiku: A short form of Japanese poetry
Harmony: Aspect of music that pertains to simultaneous combinations of notes, the intervals, and
chords that result, and the correct succession of chords.
Lyrical: songlike, emotional, expressive
Melody: Succession of tones perceived as a coherent line. A tune.
Ode: a long lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or
enthusiastic emotion. Frequently, a lyric ode is in praise of, or dedicated to someone or something
which captures the poet’s interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode.
Orchestration: the number and type of instruments used in a piece. For example, the
orchestration of a string quartet is two violins, one viola, and one cello.
Romanticism: Term applied to music of the nineteenth century. Romantic music had looser and
more extended forms, greater experimentation with harmony and texture, richly expressive and
memorable melodies, improved musical instruments, an interest in musical nationalism, and a view
of music as a moral force, in which there was a link between the artists’ inner lives and the world
around them.
Texture: The combinations of elements in a piece or passage, such as the number and
relationship of independent parts (as in monophony, herterophony, polyphony, or homophony),
groups, or musical events (as in relatively dense or transparent sonorities).
Appendix II: Extra Expressionist Information
Expressionism can be a tough subject to tackle—it isn’t as easy to define as romanticism, and
most of us don’t listen to a lot of expressionist music. Below is an excerpt from Grout and Palisca’s
A History of Western Music.
In the early twentieth century, several groups of Germa and Austrian painters embraced an
international movement called expressionism, which also extended to literature, music, dance,
theatre, and architecture. Expressionism developed from the subjectivity of Romanticism but
differed from it in the introspective experience it aimed to portray and how it chose to portray it.
Expressionist painters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele
rejected traditional Western aesthetic values by representing real object or people in grossly
distorted ways, characterized by an intensely expressive use of pure colors an dynamic
brushstrokes as in Kokoschka’s poster for his own expressionist play Murderer, Hope of Women.
These artists and others drew on contemporary themes involving the dark side of city life, in which
people lived under extreme psychological pressure, as well as bright scenes from the circus and
music-halls that masked a more gloomy reality. They aspired to represent inner experience, to
explore the hidden world of the psyche and to render visible the stressful emotional life of the
modern person—isolated, helpless in the grip of poorly understood forces, prey to inner conflict,
tension, anxiety, and fear, and tormented by elemental, irrational drives including an eroticism that
often had morbid overtones. That is also how the Viennese doctor Sigmund Freud, founder of
psychoanalysis, described the deepest level of memory and emotional activity in his Interpretation
of Dreams in 1900. In short, expressionism sought to capture the human condition as it was
perceived in the early twentieth century.
Arnold Schoenberg and his pupil Alban Berg were to leading exponents of expressionism in music,
which paralleled expressionist art by adopting a similarly desperate and revolutionary style. Its
characteristics are evident in Schoenberg’s Erwartung (1909), an opera in which a lone
protagonist—emblematic of the artist’s alienation from society and its conventions—gives voice to
what the composer described as a dream of Angst, an overwhelming feeling of dread or anxiety.
Its distorted melodies, fragmented rhythms, violently graphic musical images, and dissonant
harmonies create the quasi-hysterical atmosphere typical of the style. In none of Schoenbger’s
expressionist pieces, nor in Berg’s opera Wozzeck, did these composers try to create music that is
pretty or naturalistic (as the impressionists did); rather, they deployed the most direct—even
drastic—means, no matter how unappealing, to convey extreme and irrational states of mind.
Schoenberg was also an amateur painter and took lessons from Richard Gerstl, a young exponent
of expressionism in Vienna, who in 1908 had an affair with Schoenberg’s wife Mathilde and
committed suicide after she returned to Schoenberg. Schoenberg’s most impressive pictures, a
series of “gazes” in the form of faces, not only emphasize the act of looking but also suggest the
same feelings of claustrophobia and Angst as those portrayed in his music.
Appendix III: Biographies
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
The Austrian composer, Anton (Friedrich Willhelm) von Webern (he eventually removed the noble
“von” in 1918 when these noble distinctions were outlawed in Austria)2, received his first instruction
in music from his mother, an amateur pianist. In 1902, he entered the University of Vienna, where
he studied harmony, counter point and also attended classes in musicology with Guido Adler.
He received his Ph.D in 1906 in musicology.
In 1904, he began private studies in composition with Arnold Shoenberg, and whose passionate
disciple he became. Another composer, Alban Berg, also studied with Schoenberg and together
they laid the foundations of what became known as the Second Viennese School of composition
(the First Viennese School is considered to be comprised of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and—
occasionally—Schubert). Two unifying elements of the Second Viennese School were firstly that
all twelve tones of the scale are equal and should relate only to one another an not to a hierarchical
system;3 secondly, that music is not dictated by culture, but by natural laws that composers
“discover” as they compose. Though we now know that music is heavily culturally influenced,
Webern considered each musical evolution to be a natural progression.
From 1908 until Hitler came to power in 1933, Webern was active as a conductor, teacher, lecturer,
choral director in Vienna and in Germany. After Hitler rose to power in Germany, Webern’s music
was banned. He eked out an existence by teaching a few private pupils and making piano
arrangements of musical scores by others for Universal Edition. After his son was killed in an air
bombardment of a train in February 1945, he and his wife fled Vienna to Mittersill, near Salzburg,
to stay with his married daughters and grandchildren. His life ended tragically on September 15,
1945, when he was shot and killed by an American soldier after stepping outside his son-in-law’s
residence.
Webern was not a prolific composer—only 31 of his compositions were published in his lifetime.4
Like almost every composer who had a long career, Webern’s music changed over time. However,
it is typified by being very spare, in which every note can be heard clearly. Textures are stripped to
the bare essentials, and his music has sometimes been described as pointillistic. Webern’s
earliest works are in the late Romantic style (as you will hear in his Langsamer Satz of 1905). For
a number of years, Webern wrote pieces that were freely atonal. That means that they were not
written using a specific method as he used later in his compositions, but rather freely composed
with whatever notes he pleased. Later on (after 1925), Webern begane utilizing the twelve-tone
method developed by Arnold Schoenberg.
Why might Austria have outlawed titles of nobility in 1918? What had just occurred in Europe that changed the face
of world politics?
3 Note to teachers: to demonstrate the “hierarchical system” of the traditional tonal system, consider singing the first
part of the well-known tune “Shave and a Haircut—Two Bits” and ask the class to sing the last part of the tune (“two
bits”—leading tone resolving up to the tonic). Another possibility might be working with the tune of “Happy Birthday” to
examine tonic and dominant relationships. The students should be able to hear that as listeners, we want them to
resolve because it is what we are used to.
4 In comparison, Schubert wrote 600 songs for voice and piano alone! And he died at age 31!
2
The impact of Webern’s music on the general public and on the critics was disconcerting. No one
knew exactly how to react. Upon occasion, his music incited violent demonstrations! Can you
imagine classical music causing violent riots today? Despite his rocky start, Webern’s extraordinary
skill and novelty of technique made his music endure beyond his death. Today, there are many
more performances of Webern’s music than there were during his lifetime and we appreciate him
for how he helped shaped music history.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer, and was also one of fourteen children
born to his father, nine of whom died in infancy. Their father was a well-known teacher who ran a
school in Lichtental. When he was just five years old, Schubert started regular instruction from his
father and a year later began his formal musical education. He studied the violin, piano, and
viola. He also played in the viola in the family string quartet, with his brothers on violin and his
father on the cello. Schubert wrote many of his early string quartets for this ensemble.
By age eleven, Schubert was discovered by Vienna’s leading musical authority (Antonio Salieri)
and he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial Seminary) through a choral scholarship. Here,
Schubert studied the overtures and symphonies of Mozart and greatly increased his musical
knowledge. He also studied composition with Salieri during his years at the seminary.
Schubert returned home at 16, but continued to study with Salieri. Schubert had his most prolific
year in 1815, when he was only eighteen! He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half
of which was for orchestra, including nine church works, a symphony, and about 140
songs. Though he was only thirty-one when he died, Schubert wrote an immense amount of
music, including over six hundred songs, nine symphonies, some operas, and a large body of
chamber and solo piano music.
While Schubert had a very close circle of friends (his friends fondly called him “the little mushroom”
because he was quite short) who admired his work, he wasn’t a “famous” composer until after he
died. He was never able to find steady employment, and for most of his career he relied on the
support of friends and family. In the last year of his life he began to become better known. He died
at 31, apparently due to complications from syphilis.
Interest in Schubert’s work increased dramatically in the years following his death. Famous,
respected composers including Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn discovered,
collected, and championed his works in the late nineteenth century. Franz Schubert is now widely
considered to be one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition.
Cypress String Quartet
Known for its elegant performances, the Cypress String Quartet (Cecily Ward, violin; Tom Stone,
violin; Ethan Filner, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello) has been praised by Gramophone for its
“artistry of uncommon insight and cohesion,” and its sound has been called “beautifully
proportioned and powerful” by The Washington Post. The Cypress Quartet was formed in San
Francisco in 1996, and during its initial rehearsals the group created a signature sound through
intense readings of J.S. Bach’s Chorales.
The Cypress continues to maintain a busy national and international tour schedule, making
appearances on concert series and in venues including Cal Performances, Kennedy Center,
Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, Krannert Center, Ravinia Festival, and the 92 nd Street Y’s
series at SubCulture in downtown New York. Their collaborators include artists such as Leon
Fleisher, Jon Nakamatsu, Awadagin Pratt, Gary Hoffman, Atar Arad, James Dunham, and Zuill
Bailey.
During the last two years, the Cypress String Quartet has added three new recordings to its tenalbum discography. In November 2011, March 2012, and February 2013 respectively, the Quartet
released The American Album (featuring Barber, Griffes, and Dvořák), a complete three-CD set of
Beethoven’s Late Quartets (named Best Classical CD of 2012 by the Dallas Morning News), and
an all-Dvořák disc, which was released on the AVIE record label.
Through its signature Call & Response program the Cypress Quartet commissions and premieres
new string quartets from both emerging and celebrated composers, asking them to write in
response to established chamber repertoire. To date, the Cypress Quartet has commissioned and
premiered over 30 pieces, four of which were chosen for Chamber Music America’s list of “101
Great American Ensemble Works.”
A vibrant member of the San Francisco arts community, the Cypress Quartet dedicates itself to
reflecting and enriching the city’s cultural landscape through collaborations with the de Young
Museum, San Francisco Girls Chorus, and ODC-Dance. As part of its efforts to support and
promote Bay Area arts and music, the CSQ self-curates a Salon Series held in intimate, exquisite
spaces in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.
The Cypress Quartet members received degrees from many of the world’s finest conservatories
before coming together as a quartet. These include The Juilliard School, Guildhall School of
Music & Drama and the Royal College of Music (London), The Cleveland Institute of Music, and
the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After a residency at the Banff Centre and a fellowship at
the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies of the Aspen Music Festival, the Quartet coached
intensively in London with the Amadeus Quartet.
The members of the Cypress Quartet play exceptional instruments including violins by Antonio
Stradivari (1681) and Carlos Bergonzi (1733), a viola by Vittorio Bellarosa (1947), and a cello by
Hieronymus Amati II (1701). The Cypress Quartet takes its name from the set of twelve love songs
for string quartet, Cypresses, by Antonin Dvořák.