Album: Hilary Hahn & Hauschka, Silfra (Deutsche Grammophon)

Best known for her Diapason and Grammy-winning interpretations of Bach, Brahms and Schoenberg, US violinist Hilary Hahn likes to work at the fringes of her discipline too.

Hence this collaboration with the experimental German pianist Volker Bertelmann, aka Hauschka, whose prepared-piano techniques incorporate the likes of ping-pong balls and electric motors inside the instrument. For Silfra, the duo have devised a series of fascinating improvisations, ranging from the hovering calm of "Stillness" to the agitated bowing of "Bounce Bounce". Particularly effective are "North Atlantic", with its rhapsodic violin over a poignant two-note piano figure, and the 12-minute "Godot", an eerily melancholy alliance of hypnotic industrial pulse and keening solitude.

Download: North Atlantic; Godot; Stillness