The threads that connect the string quartets on this "American album" by San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet are a little tenuous. The booklet speaks of the mixture of ethnic influences that has been characteristic of concert music in the U.S., but two of the works, Kevin Puts' Lento assai and Samuel Barber's String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11, do not use ethnic materials at all.

This release by Norwegian cellist Jonathan Aasgaard (the principal cellist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) and British pianist Martin Roscoe purports to be a complete recording of Brahms' music for cello and piano. In fact it's padded with quite a few other things that have little or nothing to do with Brahms other than the fact that he composed the original music.

Following three acclaimed releases for AVIE surveying works by Dvo?ák, Schubert and contemporary Americans, the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet turns to the seminal string quartets of Beethoven, performing the five quartets from the composer’s middle period. Formed in 1996, the Cypresses added Beethoven to their repertoire early on. Their signature sound, which is clear and transparent, built up from the bottom register and layered like a pyramid, lends itself beautifully to the Middle String Quartets – the three “Rasumovskys,” the “Harp,” and the “Serioso.”

The Cypress String Quartet, based out of San Francisco, CA, has been working on a series of recordings of the complete string quartets of Beethoven, with the quartet's first violinist, Cecily Ward, listed as producer of the recordings. This set of the op. 18 quartets fills out their recorded survey. Interestingly, the quartet essentially went in "reverse order" with respect to issuing their recordings, in that the op. 18 quartets are, of course, the earliest of the Beethoven quartets, but this 2-CD set is the last of the Cypress Quartet's recordings of the cycle to be issued. Their album of the late quartets was first, and the album of the middle quartets was, fittingly, in the middle.

The Vivaldi recordings by Adrian Chandler and his British period instrument ensemble La Serenissima, named after the nickname of the Venetian Republic and specializing in its music, are breaking new ground. Give this one a try if you haven't heard the group before: it's wonderful. Chandler focuses on double concertos, which Vivaldi produced in profusion for his players as the Osepale della Pietà, but which have been largely neglected on recordings.