The image on the back cover of the CD depicting Jansen arm-wrestling with Antonio Pappano feels noticeably apt. Not since Herbert von Karajan unleashed the Berlin Philharmonic, issuing a challenge to Anne-Sophie Mutter to bite back in their 1981 recording of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, has a conductor pumped Brahms’ orchestral introduction with such dramatic theatre and pizzazz.

This is an opera that just happens to be scored for violin and orchestra, Pappano seems to be telling us, but the high-intelligence of Jansen’s musicality, not to mention her good taste, leads her to pursue a more expressively and colouristically nuanced pathway than this might imply. The genuinely startling feature of this new performance is witnessing Jansen scoop detail out from Pappano’s broad sonic wash.

Like two swinging pendulums gradually locking into alignment, the bump-and-grind rootsy grit that Jansen brings to the folksy Finale meets Pappano head on; but otherwise the gossamer delicacy of the Adagio, and the uncountable rhythmic suppleness with which Jansen navigates Brahms’ airborne lines during the opening movement, moves largely by stealth. Bartók’s First Violin Concerto, a promising pairing on paper, proves less adaptable to this good cop/bad cop approach. The unwinding chromatics of the first movement clearly enthral Jansen; but this performance collapses towards blandness.