Bach, Brahms and Schubert are the guiding spirits behind Elisabeth Batiashvili's stunning debut disc with which the young fiddler establishes her presence with formidable authority. Winner at 16 of the 1995 Helsinki Sibelius competition, this Georgian has since trained in Munich but her sound brackets her with the immortals from Odessa. It's full of warmth and flexibility and imbued with classic restraint: she seems incapable of producing a bum note. The unaccompanied Bach is a full-dress performance, with Batiashvili digging deep into the strings to bring out the implicit counterpoint with vivid force. The way she plays it, the Sarabande at the centre of this work is filled with such aching longing that one readily believes its autobiographical provenance: this was one of the pieces which that inveterate punster Bach entitled not Sei Soli (six solos) but Sei solo ("you are alone"). For this was just after his first wife had died. Brahms's Sonata No 1 emerges in sumptuous style: Batiashvili conveys his unique ability to seem liberatedly wild while keeping his structures under immaculate control. Concluding with Schubert's late Rondo in B minor--a romp which seems wayward even by his labyrinthine standards--she and her excellent pianist go out in a blaze of romantic glory. --Michael Church