Album: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Rihm: Lichtes Spiel, Dyade; Currier: Time Machines (Deutsche Grammophon)

Anne-Sophie Mutter alternates between classic standard repertoire and cutting-edge new works.

Intended to evoke "a form of transparent, instrumental motion", according to Wolfgang Rihm, Lichtes Spiel features an evanescent, will o' the wisp quality to Mutter's lines, threatened by darker, steely shades in the orchestral arrangement. But it's light in not just the visual sense, but also the spiritual. Dyade is a more subtle, flowing piece bereft of rests, but no less unsettling, while Sebastien Currier's Time Machines evokes seven different aspects of time, a staccato bricolage of exclamatory stabs which drift slowly apart from each other.

DOWNLOAD THIS: Time Machines; Lichtes Spiel