For the Record, Op. 335: Brooklyn Rider; Isabelle Faust

June 1, 2025, 2:26 PM · Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening! Click on the highlighted links to obtain each album or learn more about the artists.

Brooklyn Rider: violinist Johnny Gandelsman, cellist Michael Nicolas, violinist Colin Jacobsen and violist Nicholas Cords.

The Four Elements
Brooklyn Rider
Johnny Gandelsman, violin
Colin Jacobsen, violin
Nicholas Cords, viola
Michael Nicolas, cello

From Brooklyn Rider: "The concept of four classical elements — Earth, Air, Fire, Water — as the foundation for the physical world was shared across ancient cultures, including those in Greece, Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, India, and beyond. In parallel, the unique musical ecosystem of the string quartet is a balance of four equal and living elements, collectively capable of giving voice to the vast beauties and mysteries of our world as well as the highly destructive forces which, taken together, represent the single greatest challenge of our time." Brooklyn Rider has assembled a novel program anchored by four works symbolically representing earth, air, fire, water. All created (or collected) within the last century of accelerated and unprecedented planetary change, Brooklyn Rider has additionally asked four brilliant composers (Akshaya Avril Tucker, Conrad Tao, Dan Trueman and Andreia Pinto-Correia) to write new works that reflect current realities and serve as a musical call to action. BELOW: Representing Fire: Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Opus 110 - III. Allegretto

Ligeti: Violin Concerto, Concert Românesc, Piano Concerto
Isabelle Faust, violin
Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, piano
Les Siecles, François Xavier-Roth conducting

Hungarian-Austrian composer György Ligeti is an icon of the 20th century and its signature classical style, with his musical language exploring the more thorny aspects of sound: cacophony, atonalism, dissonance, clashing rhythms, ear-bending pitches, etc. Here Isabelle Faust performs Ligeti's Violin Concerto from the early 1990s, a five-movement work featuring microtonality, ocarinas and more. The album also includes Ligeti's Piano Concerto, performed by Jean-Frédéric Neuburger. BELOW: the second movement is considered the most accessible in Ligeti's Violin Concerto, but here is the excerpt featured by the record label, from the fourth-movement Passacaglia - enjoy:

If you have a new recording you would like us to consider for inclusion in our "For the Record" feature, please e-mail Editor Laurie Niles. Be sure to include the name of your album, a link to it and a short description of what it includes.

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Paul Deck

June 1, 2025 at 08:34 PM · When I clicked on the Shostakovich video the trills in the background caught me off guard. It's been forever since I've listened to that piece and I thought something was going on outside, like me neighbor's phone was ringing.

Richard Pairaudeau

June 2, 2025 at 07:22 AM · Has anybody else seen the trumpeter cover his left ear in preparation for a loud note from his colleague? (Ligeti vc extract.)

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For the Record, Op. 335: Brooklyn Rider; Isabelle Faust

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