Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Lili Boulanger, Barber, and Rachmaninov — With Janine Jansen

Dutch violin star Janine Jansen contributes her "radiant tone and fiery technique" (The New York Times) to a program of elegantly contrasting 20th-century works with the London Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor, the great Sir Antonio Pappano. Following a revivifying burst of springtime air in Lili Boulanger's tone poem D'un matin de printemps, Jansen performs the Violin Concerto by American composer Samuel Barber. Composed in 1939, Barber's soulful concerto transports us into his unconventional, lushly tonal landscape from the sweepingly melodic first movement through the exhilarating perpetual motion of the short but intense finale, all executed with Jansen's characteristic grace and depth of feeling. Finally, Sir Antonio and the LSO turn to Rachmaninov's passionate Symphony No. 2, full of dramatic emotional shifts, rich orchestral textures, and some of the composer's most memorable melodies, notably in the swooningly romantic Adagio.

Photo © Mark Allan
Janine Jansen appears courtesy of Decca Classics.