Some musicians go further than others in creating their own recitals or albums; study autograph manuscripts; writing program notes; relentlessly questioning how a familiar piece is played. As a solo harpsichordist, aiming to bring the instrument back into the mainstream, the Iranian-American Mahan Esfahani commissioned new works and revisited old ones in multiple ways. On his latest album, Bach: Italian Concerto and French Overture (Hyperion), it examines the work of Bach’s engravers and copyists, any errors that occur, and how the performer should interpret them. The double question of what is authentic and what is musical is at the heart of Esfahani’s always vivid and inexhaustible questions.

Playing an instrument made in 2018 in Prague, where he currently lives, Esfahani brings grandeur and clarity to Bach’s familiar Italian Concerto. The short opening movement feels supple and majestic, the slow movement a sensual dialogue between the flowing, exploratory right hand and the steady, lute-like left. In the presto of the last movement, Esfahani takes off at full speed and with sparkling virtuosity. The colors he brings here to all the works – including the capriccio in B flat “on the departure of his beloved brother” – make us relive the sonic capacities of the harpsichord.

Inspired by her own childhood tendency to confide her secrets not to a toy but to her violin, Lisa Batiashvili it is secret love letters with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) brings together works united by a strong attraction that Batiashvili identifies as love. Two works, the Sonata in A major by César Franck and the tiny Beau Soir by Debussy, are for violin and piano. Two are for soloist and orchestra: Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Chausson’s Concerto Poem .

We benefit from Yannick Nézet-Séguin both as a conductor and as an ever-exploring pianist. He and Batiashvili find hidden corners to explore in the Franck, played with delicacy and passion by the two. The Szymanowski, an outpouring of angst as much as warmth, and the Chausson, full of expressive nostalgia, bring out the golden tonal quality of soloist and orchestra.