Last year, Janine Jansen filled Auckland Town Hall playing Tchaikovsky with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, her performance melting all but the stoniest of hearts.
The Dutch violinist's new CD presents an unexpected coupling of concertos, mainstream Brahms and less familiar Bartok. The marvellous Antonio Pappano conducts both, and the Brahms has the extra zing of a live performance with Rome's Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
There is an enviable sense of ease in Brahms' first movement, although its golden glow allows for brilliant outbursts of fire. Jansen's stylish detailing of the Joachim cadenza almost gives it the status of an independent solo.
Oboist Francesco Di Rosa is credited in the Adagio, and rightly so, as his shapely solo is the perfect springboard for Jansen's glorious lyricism; such is the sheer exhilaration of the Finale that, after the last chord has died away, one waits expectantly for an encore that never comes. But might the encore be Bartok's 1908 First Violin Concerto, clocking in at just under the 22 minutes of Brahms' first movement?
In this context, you'll easily succumb to the vibrant emotionalism of its opening Andante sostenuto, inspired by the Hungarian composer's love for the violinist Steffi Geyer.
