Cypress Quartet Plays Splendid Schubert

Young as a group--it was founded only in 1996--and young-looking, the Cypress String Quartet, which closed the Music Guild’s first Sunday afternoon series this week at University Synagogue in Brentwood, is assured, mature and thorough.

The four players--violinists Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violist Ann Gregg and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel--were joined by Los Angeles Philharmonic cellist Brent Samuel in the program’s capstone, Schubert’s Quintet in C, D. 956. The results attested to the group’s musical astuteness and virtuoso resources.

Only at the end of the lengthy work did a hint of strain or fatigue become noticeable. Otherwise, all of Schubert’s demands for concentration, linearity and stamina were met. The emotional progress of the piece accumulated force and sensibility, and the playing was close to immaculate.

The opening movement held tightly to its course, finding its dynamic limits, then stretching them--soft-playing is one of the San Francisco-based ensemble’s strengths. The Adagio observed the seraphic Schubertian line while compressing its need to meander.

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The problematic Scherzo remained a riddle in an enigma, yet its surfaces gleamed; the final movement attained its climactic tone amid its handsome digressions. A felicitous achievement.

Seriousness and polish also marked the first half of the concert, devoted to Mozart’s Quartet in F, K. 590, and Five Pieces (1923) by Erwin Schulhoff.

In both, the skilled Cypress ensemble delivered musical stylishness and a healthy sense of probing. Mozart’s final work in the form is familiar; Schulhoff’s pungent and diverting Five Pieces amuses as it uplifts and should certainly have wider currency.