Long gone are the days when the Mendelssohn concerto was feted to be yoked with the Bruch and the Sibelius concerto with the Tchaikovsky. In recent years, violinists have adopted a more original, even counterintuitive approach.

This thought crossed my mind when I came to review this CD, where Janine Jansen couples the Sibelius with Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto. 

While the Prokofiev isn’t exactly obscure, it certainly isn’t over exposed either. The work is deliberately unsensational and unshowy without cadenzas, but has orchestral textures unusually transparent for Prokofiev and are in a relationship of coherence rather than rather tension or confrontation, as though the composer were tacitly accepting that the violin is essentially a lyrical instrument, peppered with intermittent astringency. That said, Jansen invests the work with abundant virtuosity and steely glitter, as well as freshness, freedom and vitality while negotiating the other kaleidoscopic moods throughout. 

The dreamy, almost fairytale opening gradually becomes awkward, angular and full of the composer’s talismanic irony in Jansen’s hands, as is the movement’s ending with its “modern” motor rhythm. In the Scherzo (no homage to...