Warmly natural sonics only emphasize the inadequacy of these performances. Having lost Julia Fischer to Decca, it seems that Pentatone doesn’t feel comfortable without a young German female violinist on its roster. Alas, Arabella Steinbacher is no Julia Fischer. Her Dvorák sounds more like a reading rehearsal. Droopy tempos kill the outer movements–the finale must be one of the dullest and stiffest on disc. Time-wise, it’s only a minute slower than the reference recording above, but subjectively it seems to take an eternity. Marek Janowski sleepwalks through the accompaniment, as does the orchestra, playing with string-heavy balances and not a shred of rhythmic life.
The Szymanowski is no better. This must be the third or fourth recording of this concerto in recent months, and because it depends for its success more on atmospheric texture than on traditionally shaped melodies, you might think Steinbacher and Janowski’s slushy approach would work. It doesn’t. Steinbacher’s thin tone hardly does justice to the lush solo line–or to those ecstatic flights into the instrument’s highest register. And frankly, the coupling makes no sense either; Szymanowski’s more obviously folk-influenced Second Concerto would have been more appropriate. But with playing this routine, it hardly matters.
