There are no booklet notes to speak of attached to this Bach and Pärt programme from Arabella Steinbacher. Just a very brief personal statement, saying that it was hearing the slow movement of Bach’s A minor Concerto, aged four, that made her want to play the violin, and stating that Bach’s and Pärt’s music’s shared spiritual and sacred origins – which in turn bring Steinbacher herself peace – making them a natural pairing. But when Bach and Pärt aren’t entirely uncommon album bedfellows already, I’d have been fascinated to know more about the thoughts behind the resultant readings.

Especially because Fratres and Spiegel im Spiegel come with arresting tempo decisions – Fratres’s 12'34" a good two-plus minutes slower than standard, and the same for Spiegel im Spiegel at 11'26" – which is enough to turn the two of them into quite different musical propositions. With Fratres, peace is certainly the operative word, with another defining feature being Steinbacher’s comparative metrical (and to an extent timbral) evenness. Downsides include, in her very opening solo string-crossings, a much reduced bottom-note rhythmic and melodic pull. That said, there is still just enough momentum, and the sleek, sharp-edged length of bow she’s able to give at the work’s passionate climax point (7'00") is very effective. So too is the polished, lucid-texted depth of the overall sound both from her – borrowing the rich-toned 1744 Guarneri del Gesù ‘Sainton’ violin – and from the Stuttgart CO. Spiegel im Spiegel, though, teeters more dangerously on the line between time suspended and time stopped, its 6/4 a definite six-beats-per-bar rather than a slowly flowing two.

But enough of buts, because my response to the three Bach concertos here comes with no caveats. Tempos balance pace and energy with room for maximum expression, and it all feels attractively informed by the sound world of the Pärt, with all its richness and stringy lucidity. The E major’s opening Allegro is fabulous for Steinbacher’s colourful combination of subtly detached bounce and more romantic-flavoured freedom, from the warmth of her subtle vibrato and her metrical push and pull to the occasional loving portamento. She also brings a range of voices to the leaping lines – a quality I found myself missing in Fratres.

Speaking of multi-voices, the D minor Double’s glorious central movement rings with romance and the sense of two personalities engaged in conversation, Christoph Koncz a darker, slightly more detached and less vibrato’d foil to Steinbacher. The A minor’s central Andante is equally exquisite in its perfect weighting of contrasting elements. The collective tone ranges from depth and strength to chamber-weight fragility, while Steinbacher is luminously lithe, lyric and light in her upper registers, and plumbs her instrument’s velvety depths on the lower strings.

Peace notwithstanding, when it comes to Pärt my money is less on Steinbacher than on Mullova’s multicoloured flowing freedom. This Bach, however, I cannot recommend highly enough.