Janine Jansen

May 22, 2004 at PDT

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a collection of four virtuosic violin concertos completed in 1720 at the height of the Baroque era, has mesmerized musicians and audiences in equal measure ever since. Recordings of it run into the hundreds, yet this one, released back in 2005 and remastered in Spatial Audio, stands out for its vibrancy and sense of fresh discovery. That’s because, Janine Jansen tells Apple Music Classical, this is a Four Seasons with a difference. “We did it with just eight people rather than a full orchestra,” she says. “And it was very exciting to experiment with this small group.”

Among that tightly knit band of eight players were two members of Jansen’s own family—her cellist brother Maarten and father Jan on harpsichord and organ. Including them in the recording was, for Jansen, a natural extension of many happy hours spent making music together in the family home. “When I was growing up I played so many of the Baroque concertos with my father,” she remembers. “I learned so much from him. He would put together a small group of players for me to get a chance to perform these concertos, and we noticed with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons that it worked really well. It gave something special to the sound and to the freedom.”

Using a similar small-ensemble approach for this recording brought many musical advantages. “We were playing this very well-known piece, but somehow having a different sense of color, timing, and transparency. The benefits were really good, and I didn’t miss having a bigger strength in the strings.” Jansen led the Four Seasons sessions on first violin, giving a dazzling account of Vivaldi’s solo writing. And although she had a clear idea of how she wanted the music to be interpreted, Jansen recalls how democratic it all felt. “We listened to each other’s ideas verbally, but also through playing and communicating, and reacting to one another. We definitely looked for new ideas and new approaches.”

There’s a spirit of adventure to this recording—a sense of each musician knowing they’re making something very familiar sound wonderfully new. Jansen has a simple explanation: “What I remember most about the project,” she says, “is that it was a lot of fun with a great group of people.”

12 Tracks

December 31, 2012 at PST

Bach Concertos

A natural successor to her iTunes Essentials recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Janine Jansen captures Johann Sebastian Bach's sound world with a delightful transparency and vitality—the same spirit of that imbues her previously released, groundbreaking performance. Her twelve-piece ensemble brings energy and invention to the concertos. There's also a dynamic verve to the sonatas, on which she duets with her father Jan Jansen on harpsichord. The famous "Air on a G-string" closes the album with serene, meditative grace.

19 Tracks

September 9, 2021 at PDT

12 Stradivari

Antonio Stradivarius was, arguably, the greatest violin maker of them all, producing instruments that violinists today still treasure for their warm, generous tone. Each one, however, is entirely different, and here we get the unique opportunity to examine the sound of 12 of Stradivarius’ masterpieces. Some have not been played for decades—some, perhaps, never even recorded before. Violinist Janine Jansen and pianist Antonio Pappano have curated a program to accompany each one, their choices reflecting each instrument’s historic owners as much as the character of the violin itself. So, a 1717 Stradivarius once played by Englishman Edward Tyrrell is showcased by Elgar’s “Sospiri” while Rachmaninoff is chosen for an instrument once cherished by Russian-American virtuoso Nathan Milstein. It’s a fascinating, beautifully programmed, and stunningly performed experiment.

15 Tracks

June 6, 2024 at PDT

Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1

Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, first completed in 1903, was the composer’s poignant farewell to his dream of becoming a concert violinist. There is a rapt quality in its opening, as the soloist floats a reflective yet poignant melody above a shimmering sound created by the orchestral violins. And yet, violinist Janine Jansen tells Apple Music Classical, there’s an “underlying tension” and even “friction” throughout the work.

“I think there is something burning through the whole work,” says Jansen, “but at the beginning it’s about mood and the landscape. These tensions feel quite distant. You, as the soloist, don’t want to give everything at the beginning.”

As Jansen points out, the soloist gives fuller expression as the movement progresses, most eloquently in an extensive cadenza that is effectively a soliloquy rather than just a moment to show off technique. Still, there are technical hurdles for the soloist—even though Sibelius toned down some of the Concerto’s more demanding virtuosity to create the now familiar 1905 version.

“When I think back over the years I spent learning the piece,” says Jansen, “I definitely struggled over its technical challenges. But I think there’s something about that struggle which is an intrinsic part of the Sibelius. It’s not so much about the technique itself, but about the musical meaning of the piece. The struggle itself is important—nothing in this piece should sound easy.”

This is particularly true of the finale, which follows the softly spoken, intimate “Adagio di molto” central movement. “The finale was the movement I struggled with most over the years. But it shouldn’t sound effortless. For me it has something relentless, but also something quite frantic about it.”

Jansen’s idea to follow the Sibelius with Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 is as inspired as her collaboration with the excellent Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Prokofiev the cheeky Russian iconoclast—as he was when he completed his concerto in 1917—might not immediately seem a natural companion to the moody Finnish nationalist composer. Yet, Jansen is pleased with her “intuitive decision” to pair the two: “For me, it’s a perfect fit. After the raw emotions of the Sibelius, and that intensity, you then go into this magical score of Prokofiev’s—into this dreaminess at its beginning.”

It helps that Prokofiev’s Concerto happens to start in the same key as Sibelius’ finale, and also echoes the concept of hushed tremolo strings (this time divided violas) over which the soloist floats their melody (marked in the score “sognando”—“dreaming”). Jansen released her excellent recording of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, coupled with his violin sonatas, in 2012. So why has it taken more than 10 years since for her to turn to Concerto No. 1 which, she confesses, “was one of my favorite pieces from when I was young”?

“I was very attracted to the First Concerto’s magical world,” says Jansen; “I’d practiced it, but never performed it. I don’t know why I waited—maybe because I love it, and I wanted to find the right approach to it.”

As with the Sibelius, Jansen wanted to avoid making it a mere virtuosic showpiece. “In the first movement, that opening melody has to be so flexible and lyrical. But after that there’s all these little character and tempo changes. I think sometimes there is a tendency to play those sections quite fast, but then the music loses its character. So I tried to look at the score with fresh eyes, to find what Prokofiev is actually asking for. He’s so precise in his notation of articulations and in the directions he gives.”

Accuracy remains paramount in the following movement, which Prokofiev himself intended to be “the scherzo of all scherzos.” “You have to practice it so you can trust that your body knows what it’s doing,” says Jansen. “Your fingers have to move so fast, it’s impossible to get your brain consciously involved—the moment you try to actually control it, you’re lost.”

Here, Jansen draws a difference between Prokofiev and Sibelius: “In Sibelius, if there is one note that is not completely in the right moment, but the gesture is there, one gets the necessary fire and the rawness. But with Prokofiev, your technique has to be so crystal clear because it says everything about the music’s character.”

7 Tracks

December 31, 2012 at PST

Bach: Inventions & Partita

35 Tracks

November 2, 2017 at PDT

Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time)

During World War II, while incarcerated in a German prisoner-of-war camp, the French composer Olivier Messiaen met three fellow musicians, a clarinetist, a violinist, and a cellist. And it’s for this unusual combination (plus his own instrument, the piano) that he wrote the Quartet for the End of Time. It’s an astonishing work of often transcendent beauty, its very act of creation intended as a way to survive the cruelty of life in the camp and an expression of beauty in the face of horror. 
 
Premiered in January 1941 in front of 5000 prisoners, the work was performed on battered instruments. It’s hard to imagine the impact of Messiaen’s iridescent music on his audience, but contemporary accounts suggest that each and every person in attendance listened in rapt silence. This 2017 recording captures flawless playing in glorious sound from a starry ensemble of international soloists, whether in the dancing impishness of the opening movement or in the sublime finale, “Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus,” in which Janine Jansen’s violin drifts slowly to the very top of its register—one of Messiaen’s most intensely spiritual moments.

8 Tracks

December 31, 2006 at PST

Mendelssohn & Bruch: Concertos & Romance (With Bonus Track)

8 Tracks

July 13, 2003 at PDT

Janine Jansen

8 Tracks

October 29, 2015 at PDT

Brahms: Violin Concerto - Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1

The Dutch sensation takes on Brahms and Bartók with some expert help.

5 Tracks

December 31, 2012 at PST

Beethoven & Britten Violin Concertos

6 Tracks

December 31, 2011 at PST

Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 1, Violin Concerto No. 2 & Sonata for 2 Violins

The Sonata for Two Violins in C Major was composed during a 1932 holiday on the French Riviera. Janine Jansen and Boris Brovtsyn find glorious colors in the writing, bringing a rich expressiveness to this rarely heard work. In the Violin Concerto No. 2, Jansen proves herself yet again a terrific Prokofiev interpreter, her strong, individual performance supported by Jurowski and the LPO in coruscating form. Perhaps the highlight of this album, however, is Jansen and Itamar Golan’s performance of the Violin Sonata No. 1, a work of bittersweet beauty, parts of which were performed at the composer’s funeral in 1953. The two players are perfectly attuned to its strange, quirky atmosphere and inhabit every bar with total commitment—right up to the finale’s manic closing pages.

11 Tracks

December 31, 2012 at PST

Schubert: String Quintet - Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht

9 Tracks

January 8, 2007 at PST

Mendelssohn & Bruch: Concertos & Romance

7 Tracks

December 31, 2012 at PST

Beau Soir

14 Tracks

December 31, 2007 at PST

Live Session: Bach (iTunes Exclusive) - EP

6 Tracks

July 16, 2020 at PDT

Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8 (Live from Verbier Festival / 2017) - Single

3 Tracks

December 31, 2006 at PST

Mendelssohn/Bruch: Violin Concertos

7 Tracks

December 31, 2007 at PST

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto (Bonus Track Version)

7 Tracks

October 9, 2007 at PDT

Shostakovich: Piano Quintet, Piano Trio No. 1, Five Pieces for 2 Violins

13 Tracks

December 31, 2008 at PST

Beethoven & Britten: Violin Concertos

7 Tracks

December 31, 2009 at PST

Beau Soir

16 Tracks

August 30, 2004 at PDT

Michel van der Aa: Violin Concerto - Hysteresis

5 Tracks

December 31, 2002 at PST

24 Capriccios for Violin Solo

24 Tracks