Violinist Vilde Frang has been on a career upswing, but she enters a highly crowded field when it comes to Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61. Nevertheless, this recording merits strong consideration for listeners' time and money. First is the unusual pairing on the program; Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D major of 1931 is not a commonly played work, and it makes an interesting foil for the Beethoven. Where Beethoven did so much to define the role of the soloist in the 19th century concerto, Stravinsky largely folds the soloist back into the ensemble, treating her or him separately only for specific effect. It is an intriguing neoclassic work that is quite accessible and ought to be featured on orchestral programs more often. Better still is the obvious rapport between Frang and conductor Pekka Kuusisto. Kuusisto is a violinist himself, temporarily sidelined by a hand injury, and he molds the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen into a flexible instrument that wraps itself around a very lively performance from Frang. In the first movement of the Beethoven, the violinist uses an unusual cadenza adapted from Beethoven's own version of the concerto for piano and orchestra, and in the second movement, she inserts an unusually long cadenza at the end, after the big transitional chords in the orchestra. These unexpected events are confidently handled by Kuusisto and the orchestra. Overall, this is an entirely fresh release from a very exciting young violinist, and its appearance on classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2022 is not surprising in the least.