The piano’s mysteriously, sensuously quivering pianissimo tremolo on to which is spun a long, slowly unfurling violin half-melody, the whole floating more in the heavens than rooted to the earth. Schubert’s Fantasie in C must have one of the most simultaneously magical and tricky openings in the whole violin-and-piano literature, and it doesn’t get easier with the challenge of managing the transitions of the three subsequent movements, while not letting the technical difficulty interfere with the music’s half-wounded, half-enraptured, often other-worldly atmosphere. This was perhaps a surprising choice for the young American violinist Stella Chen to bring to the recital round of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition in 2019, yet she went on to take the Grand Prize, followed in 2020 by an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.

Don’t be put off by this warmly recorded programme being a digital-only release. This is the work of a thinking violinist who has been exploring this music for years. The Fantasie itself receives a poetic reading couched in a sweetly gleaming tone whose weight and attack flit easily between silken vulnerability and broad, powerful punch – closely supported by Chen’s pianist friend Henry Kramer (incidentally another Queen Elisabeth Competition laureate and Avery Fisher beneficiary). You’ll find similar qualities in the Rondo brillant, which is striking for the elegance of the profound switches of colour and mood. An original transcription of the song on which Schubert based the Fantasie’s theme and variations, ‘Sei mir gegrüsst’, leads perfectly into Mischa Elman’s transcription of ‘Ständchen’, coloured here by Chen’s deliciously subtle Golden Age-esque portamentos.

Viktoria Mullova and Alasdair Beatson’s recent period-instrument Schubert recital (Signum, 5/22) also has much to recommend it, particularly if a pleasantly drier sound – and a fortepiano – appeals. But in terms of beauty and musical intelligence, I couldn’t put a candle between the two.