For the Record, Op. 341: Rachel Barton Pine; Janusz Wawrowski; Max Zorin

July 10, 2025, 12:56 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.

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, pianist Orion Weiss, and the Pacifica Quartet.

French Impressions
Rachel Barton Pine, violin
Pacifica Quartet
Orion Weiss, piano

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine unites with the Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet and pianist Orion Weiss for a beautiful album of chamber works by French composers Ernest Chausson and Germaine Tailleferre. The album fulfills a lifelong wish for Pine: to work with the Pacifica, whose founding members Brandon Vamos and Simin Ganatra grew up alongside Pine, a student of Brandon's parents Anita and Roland Vamos from age 10 to 17. "It’s thrilling to have finally had the opportunity to collaborate on the Chausson with the Pacifica," Pine said in her introductory note to the album. "Our close friendship and shared musical roots made playing together feel natural, as we easily matched character ideas and tone colors." Violinists know Chausson for his famous "Poème"; Tailleferre was a prolific composer and the only female member of the celebrated 20th-century French group of composers known as "Les Six." BELOW: the second-movement "Sicilienne" from Chausson's Concerto for Violin, Piano & String Quartet in D Major, Op. 21.

Connections
Max Zorin, violin
Vincent Balse, piano

Violinist Max Zorin presents an album of works and arrangements by Florence Price, William Grant Still, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Vincent Balse, and Igor Frolov. Zorin currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin at Penn State University and leads an active life as an international soloist and pedagogue. BELOW: Igor Frolov's Concert Fantasy on Themes from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess

Silvestrov: Symphony No. 8; Violin Concerto
Janusz Wawrowski, violin
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Christopher Lyndon-Gee conducting

Valentin Silvestrov was forced to leave his native Ukraine after the Russian invasion of 2022, and his earlier music has an almost prescient quality that seems to express the fate of his homeland. The intimate Violin Concerto and the heartfelt, one-movement Eighth Symphony are notable for their economy of expression and emphasis on beauty, depth and harmony. The album follows Wawrowski's 2024 release with the same orchestra and conductor of a performance of Silvestrov’s Symphony for Violin and Orchestra "Widmung."

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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For the Record, Op. 341: Rachel Barton Pine; Janusz Wawrowski; Max Zorin

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