Janine Jansen PROKOFIEV

Janine Jansen is the most subtle of interpreters, and always a sensitive partner. In the Second Violin Concerto, she keeps sentiment at bay, holding back for a sense of mystery in the first movement's counter subject, and capturing an icy purity in the Concerto's central song. She responds cannily to Prokofiev's pared-back orchestral forces. This is not the usual patchwork of ideas, but an argument that Vladimir Jurowski keeps urgently on the move with the LPO soloists . . . Jansen's colleagues in the companion pieces are her equals, too. Boris Brovtsyn marches her otherworldly poise in the first and third movements of the Sonata for two violins. In Prokofiev's dark, masterful Violin Sonata No. 1, the moments of headlong attack are . . . fully realised by pianist Itamar Golan. (David Nice, BBC Music Magazine)

This splendidly recorded performance of the Second Concerto accentuates its stark and sudden contrasts -- the first movement's swings of mood and texture, the Andante's pairing of romantic melody with mechanical accompaniment . . . Jansen's playing, notable for its confident manner and wide expressive nuance . . . persuades us of the validity of her view of the concerto . . . In the Sonata for two violins, Jansen and Brovtsyn employ a wide range of tone colour, matching each other in expansiveness and virtuosity. In the quicker movements they allow the tempo to slow down for quieter passages . . . For me, the highlight of the disc is the Violin Sonata, surely one of Prokofiev's greatest works. Its sombre power is fully revealed in Jansen and Golan's account, from the first movement's anguished double-stopping, brittle pizzicato and icy scale passages, through the ferocious combat and sweet regret of the two middle movements, to the finale's manic energy and intensity.(Duncan Bruce, Gramophone) 

. . . her silvery tone and searching musicianship ensure maximum intelligence and beauty . . . simple, unaffected magic . . . [Concerto]: splendidly played by a soloist in happy harness with the London Philharmonic and Vladimir Jurowski, a conductor who understands Prokofiev's changing moods better than most . . . equally gripping accounts of the Sonata for Two Violins of 1932 and the dark and worried Sonata for Violin and Piano . . . Itamar Golan (piano) and Boris Brovtsyn (violin) play with Jansen as if joined at the hip. Whether the music's fiery or delicate, this superb disc, gorgeously recorded, should give lasting pleasure. (Geoff Brown, The Times)