Welcome to The Works, the playlist featuring the latest and best from the world of classical music. Our editors select a range of the week’s top releases, including stunning performances of well-established masterpieces, as well as exciting new talents and musical landscapes. In this week’s top track, violinist Charlie Siem plays a rarely heard but gorgeous work by the Romanian composer George Enescu. “Aria,” originally composed for a never-completed piano quintet, is a richly expressive late-Romantic piece, lasting just over two minutes but which nevertheless packs an enormous emotional hit. Enescu was a formidable violinist himself, and among his pupils was a young Yehudi Menuhin, who inspired Siem to take up the violin. “Enescu is a grand figure within the violin tradition,” he explains to Apple Music Classical. “I feel a particularly special connection to him as I play on a violin that was used by Menuhin.” Siem already felt a strong connection to the “Aria” and its companion “Scherzino” when conductor Oleg Caetani introduced him to those pieces. Siem, who describes the “Aria” as having a “fin de siècle romantic flavor”, explains its appeal: “This music requires a tonal palette that you can hear in the playing of both Enescu and Menuhin, whose stylistic individuality, including expressive shifting and characteristic vibrato, is perhaps lost today. But I have always been inspired by, and in some ways tried to imitate, the playing of legends like Kreisler, Elman, and indeed Enescu, which makes this repertoire ideal for exploring my own personal response and violinistic voice.” Don’t forget that we regularly update The Works, so if you find a piece of music or a performance you particularly love, be sure to add it to your library.