An attentive Lied Center audience watched and listened Friday evening as the Cypress String Quartet presented the premiere of “Inspired by America,” a blend of video, narration and music meant to explore the dimensions of “the American soul.” The latter also is the title of narrator Jacob Needleman’s book, from which he read in the video, which also included images of American life and leaders from George Washington to Frederick Douglass. A scrim behind the quartet added drama, sustaining lighting effects ranging from a red or blue “mist” to laser-like beams crisscrossing the stage.

The best of this ambitious multimedia effort was the playing of the Cypress Quartet, distinguished by the beautifully matched dynamics and tone quality of its members in every selection. Eschewing flashy virtuosity, they played as one, visibly in constant communication with each other. And though solo passages were mostly quiet and subdued, one could not help noticing the exceptional performance of Cecily Ward’s soaring violin, and of Jennifer Kloetzel’s eloquent cello.

Eight composers were represented, all of them American except Anton Dvorak, whose “American” quartet, Op. 96, gave his “impressions from the New World.” All eight lived in the 20th century, and four are living composers whose works were commissioned for the Cypress Quartet.

The evening opened with the group playing on a darkened stage, the quiet and contemplative molto adagio movement of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. As they finished, Needleman’s video narrative spoke of America as a land of hope, and Dvorak’s “American” quartet followed, its lively folk themes expressing that hope.

The next narrative addressed the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as a triumph of “people listening to each other” despite their differences. It was followed by the allegro movement of Charles Ives’ String Quartet No. 1, neatly representing the voices of different instruments that nevertheless ended in concord.

Fifteen selections were played altogether, and an account of each narration and its musical complement is unnecessary, but the same pattern continued through the evening’s performance, an hour and a half without intermission. Some of the pairings were more successful than others, and it came as no surprise that the selections from Dvorak, Barber, Ives and Charles Tomlinson Griffes were generally superior to the contemporary commissioned pieces. Yet Elena Ruehr’s “Aria,” from her Quartet No. 4, provided a lovely cello/viola duet; and the “Apple” movement of her “Red,” for solo violin, showcased Ward’s playing of a beautiful American Indian-inspired lament.

The work of young Dan Coleman appeared less successfully in a “fierce, obsessed” movement from his String Quartet No. 1, meant to evoke the spirit of Abraham Lincoln but doing the great man less than justice by its fidgety, nervous quality. And Jennifer Higdon was perhaps not well represented by the second movement of her Quartet No. 4, “Impressions,” chosen to illustrate the narrator’s vision of America’s unity and equality but in fact filled with dissonance and lack of movement.

An enthusiastic audience applauded as the group returned to the stage three times to bow, but after 90 minutes of continuous playing, understandably no encore was forthcoming.