German violinist Arabella Steinbacher has become a firm favourite of Australian audiences with her regular visits since she first came here as a 24-year-old protégée of Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Her playing has been described as “angelic” by Luxembourg-born Australian composer Georges Lentz, a violinist with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which is why he composed a concerto for her. Titled “…to beam in distant heavens…”, it was memorably premiered by her and the SSO in 2023 and recorded earlier this year.

This quality is especially evident in a delicious slow movement of Prokofiev’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in G minor which she performs on her latest tour, paired with the full version of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé conducted by in-demand Englishman Edward Gardner.

Arabella Steinbacher, Edward Gardner and the SSO. Photo © Jay Patel/Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The concerto’s first movement, with its Russian folk song solo opening which both charms and unsettles the listener, is handled by Steinbacher with aplomb and a Zen-like serenity – her father is German and her mother Japanese – but with power and passion evident as well.

A highlight is a rapid bowing passage over a...