VIOLIN CONCERTO / SYMPHONY No. 4

Arabella Steinbacher (violin) & Wiener Symphoniker, Fabio Luisi

The Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms is for performers and audience alike one of the loveliest, most challenging examples of the genre. It was with this work that Arabella Steinbacher gave her debut in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein in December 2007, the same hall where the composer himself had conducted on occasion. Arabella Steinbacher’s debut was accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor Fabio Luisi, who are also to be heard on this live recording in Schumann’s Fourth Symphony. Both this symphony and the Brahms concerto were dedicated to the leading violin virtuoso of the second half of the 19th century, namely Joseph Joachim. The work soon began a triumphal procession through the concert halls. Thanks to Joachim’s numerous famed successors, it would be impossible to imagine the violin repertoire today without it.

Arabella Steinbacher won the Joachim Violin Competition in Hanover several years ago, which was a starting point of her current international career. She is furthermore a worthy representative of the violin style that is celebrated in Brahms’s concerto, a style that is virtuosic without virtuosity becoming an end in itself. Thanks to her much-praised brilliant, precise tone, the listener remains aware throughout that the solo part never recedes completely into the background, even where the orchestra unfolds its most expansive symphonic arguments – such as in the presentation of the work’s themes and in the sensitive orchestration of the first and second movements. Arabella Steinbacher fully savours the works’ variety of colour and climax. In the brilliant cadenza of the first movement and in the highly spirited third, she draws on an embarrassment of virtuosic riches which is masterly.

Brahms: 
 Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
 Arabella Steinbacher (violin) 

Schumann: 
 Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120

"Attention to contour and proportion, clarity of texture and the beautifully balanced and blended sonorities characteristic of Luisi's work with other orchestras are evident throughout this performance of Schumann's D minor Symphony."
International Record Review - May 2011

"Hearing her Brahms performance - it was recorded live in Vienna - is rather like reading a great 19th-century novel that whirls between extremes of unfailing eloquence and lets us experience them all...Luisi and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra give the Schumann symphony a centred and vigorous performance, creating a particularly fine, mystical atmosphere during the transition into the last movement."
Classic FM Magazine - July 2011

"[The Brahms] is impressive, offering a relatively straightforward and unmannered interpretation. Steinbacher possess as beautifully warm, burnished tone and performs almost flawlessly throughout. The first movement is spacious but never indulgent, securing an almost ideal balance between the Classical and Romantic aspects of the work. Luisi extracts a wealth of interesting detail from the accompaniment and the sound has great immediacy."
BBC Music Magazine - September 2011 ****