Giya Kancheli, Gidon Kremer, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Kremerata Baltica

Chiaroscuro brings together two works by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli for solo violin, or two violins, and chamber orchestra, both heard here in their first recordings. It came out in October 2015, in Kancheli's 80th year, and extends one of his closest partnerships. Gidon Kremer had been recording his music since 1998, and his Kremerata Baltica had played it since its early years.

The sessions took place at Lithuanian National Radio and Television in Vilnius at the end of 2014, with Manfred Eicher producing. Kremer is the soloist in Chiaroscuro (2010), a piece first written for Julian Rachlin, who played it on both violin and viola. Kremer and Yuri Bashmet later asked for versions of their own. Twilight (2004) was written at Kremer's request for the Salzburg Mozart Week and was Kancheli's first work for two solo violins and strings. Here Kremer shares it with Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Piano, percussion, vibraphone and synthesizer colour the string sound.

The title Chiaroscuro comes from the Renaissance and Baroque painting technique of hard contrasts between light and shade, and the music works the same way. Long, soft, slow-moving passages are cut by sudden outbursts, with a bass drum marking the loudest peaks and the piano adding brief comments. Dominy Clements, in MusicWeb International, traces a soft, nostalgic opening and a central passage in which the orchestra threatens to swamp the soloist. The first mood then returns, lit by a shift to the major. Twilight is a meditation on mortality, composed while Kancheli was recovering from illness. The leaves and branches of the poplars outside his window became an image of change for him. Halfway through, the two soloists answer each other in an echo effect, before a series of falling gestures leads to a quiet coda.

Writing in BBC Music Magazine, Martin Cotton gave the disc five stars, found Kancheli's short phrases and long silences "strangely compelling", and judged Twilight "even more intense" than the title work. He also praised the "superbly rich and detailed recording". In ResMusica, Jean-Luc Caron heard music that grows with each listening. His words: "Générateur d'un émerveillement accentué à chaque réécoute."

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2442, released on 2 October 2015 in an O-card with a 28-page booklet containing notes by Kremer and Kancheli.