Janine Jansen has a rare ability to communicate her thoughts and feelings about the music while appearing to play in a simple, straightforward manner. The small variations of colour, pressure and emphasis that bring this about transmit a sensation of intense inner life. Whereas others may bring a warmer, more sensuous tone to the Beethoven Concerto (Joshua Bell, for one), or perform certain passages with greater vigour or individuality (Christian Tetzlaff, Thomas Zehetmair), this account turns out to be as absorbing and satisfying as any recent recording. She benefits from admirable recorded sound and finely judged orchestral playing; I’ve rarely heard the Rondo theme of the finale in its tutti version sound so joyful and exultant. It’s very pleasing, too, that Jansen isn’t hidebound by tradition; the additional bowings, added to supplement Beethoven’s often sparse indications, are ditched, to the benefit of several passages in the first and last movements.

The Britten is very well recorded, too. I found Jansen and Järvi’s performance contrasted in a most interesting way with Vengerov’s fine 2002 recording. Whereas Vengerov stresses the music’s romantic aspects and the performance emphasises blended sonorities, Jansen shows the work’s more uncomfortable, angular side. The irregular rhythms and sharp contrasts of the central Vivace are more sharply delineated and, towards the end of the concluding Passacaglia, Jansen builds to a painful degree of intensity and desperation, surely just right for a concerto written at the close of the Spanish civil war for the (strongly anti-fascist) Catalan violinist Antonio Brosa.