Album: Lisa Batiashvili, Echoes of Time (Deutsche Grammophon)

Lisa Batiashvili grew up listening to her father's string quartet playing Shostakovich, so it's no surprise that she should choose the composer's Violin Concerto No 1 as the centrepiece of her Deutsche Grammophon debut, on which she's accompanied by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Esa-Pekka Salonen.

It's a marvellous performance, suitably crepuscular in the opening "Nocturne", before a Gypsy flamboyance takes over for "Scherzo". Salonen proves the perfect accomplice in realising the album's theme of works reflective of the Soviet era, the programme including pieces by Soviet emigrés Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli: the latter's "V & V", for violin, voice and strings, is a subtle work of haunting melancholy.

DOWNLOAD THIS Violin Concerto No 1; V & V; Spiegel im Spiegel