Often Spectacular The American String Project - seen and heard by PATRIC STANDFORD 'The performers are undoubtedly superb ...'

In celebrating its tenth anniversary, the American String Project's artistic directors Barry Lieberman and his wife Maria Larionoff take pride in the achievement of a dream to create a 'conductor-less string orchestra' which expands the chamber music repertoire to include the double bass, Lieberman's own 'neglected' instrument. He creates all the arrangements, and Maria Larionoff, concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony, has helped to bring together other concertmasters and orchestral players, distinguished soloists and teachers, to re-create great works of chamber music and magnify them into impressive concert monuments.

Four string quartets and a quintet are performed in this album by an ensemble of nine violins, three violas, two cellos and a double bass in arrangements made especially for the select group by Lieberman himself, artist in residence at the University of Washington and former principal bass in the Los Angeles Philharmonic. On the accompanying twenty-five-minute DVD, a compilation from rehearsals and performances featuring the individual comments of the participants, he explains the genesis of the idea. The explosive opening of the Brahms Op 111 String Quintet deprives it of just those qualities that Elisabeth von Herzogenberg enthused about when she first received the score from the composer: '.....

MSR CLASSICS

GIUSEPPE VERDI

JOHANNES BRAHMS

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

CHAMBER MUSIC