Jean-Guihen Queyras / Pierre-Laurent Aimard / Isabelle Faust / Jörg Widmann OLIVIER MESSIAEN Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Video)

QUATUOR POUR LA FIN DU TEMPS

Isabelle Faust / Orchestre de Paris / Pablo Heras-Casado STRAVISNKY Le Sacre du Printemps EÖTVÖS "Alhambra" Concerto

 

LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS - "ALHAMBRA" CONCERTO

 

Isabelle Faust / Jean-Guihen Queyras / Alexander Melnikov / Freiburger Barockorchester / Pablo Heras-Casado BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto - Piano Trio Op. 36

 

TRIPLE CONCERTO - PIANO TRIO OP. 36

 

Isabelle Faust / Swedish Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding ARNOLD SCHOENBERG Violin Concerto - Verklärte Nacht

                                       VIOLIN CONCERTO - VERKLÄRTE NACHT

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Sonatas for Fortepiano & violin Vol. 2

                                      SONATAS FOR FORTEPIANO & VIOLIN, VOL. 2

Isabelle Faust / Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Violin Concertos

After the double album of the violin and harpsichord sonatas with Kristian Bezuidenhout, a bestseller in 2018, here is the next instalment in the Bach recording adventure that began nine years ago with a set of the sonatas and partitas now regarded as a benchmark. Isabelle Faust and Bernhard Forck and his partners at the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin have explored patiently a multitude of other works by Bach: harpsichord concertos, trio sonatas for organ, instrumental movements from sacred cantatas... All are revealed here as direct or indirect relatives of the three monumental concertos BWV 1041-43.

This fascinating achievement is a timely reminder that the master of The Well-Tempered Clavier was also a virtuoso violinist.

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin Vol. 1

The past couple of years have seen the appearance of Alina Ibragimova’s cycle of all Mozart’s music for violin and keyboard, with the pianist Cédric Tiberghien (Hyperion). Their five two-disc sets were praised almost universally and would seem set fair to become a modern benchmark for this music. Now comes Isabelle Faust with the first volume of ‘Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin’. Whether that ultimately implies an exhaustive conspectus, like Ibragimova’s, or just the later works, omitting the juvenilia, remains to be seen.

Faust and Ibragimova are similar musicians in many ways, equally adept on modern and period instruments and with an exploratory approach to everything they play. Ibragimova’s Mozart was on modern instruments; Faust, on the other hand, plays her 1704 ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Stradivari, while Alexander Melnikov’s fortepiano is a copy of a 1795 Anton Walter. The difference in sound is apparent from the very first note of the D major Sonata, K306: a simple tune in thirds in the piano right hand over an Alberti-style left hand with the violin doubling, an octave higher, the implied bass line. The separation between instruments – the violin accompanying the keyboard here – is clearly demarcated between Ibragimova and Tiberghien, while the greater similarity of tone between Faust’s sparkling violin and Melnikov’s glittering fortepiano (within an airier acoustic) results in a sound more akin to the jingling of small bells. It’s delicious.

This is domestic music, and the instruments of the day were scaled to such private performances. Modern instruments are designed to project, and Ibragimova and Tiberghien’s readings were conceived to do just that: first in the Wigmore Hall, where they performed this cycle, then at the concert hall of the Wyastone Estate in Monmouth, their recording venue. Two contrasting conceptions of the same music.

Ibragimova’s evenness and fullness of tone contrasts with Faust’s range of dynamics, especially at low levels – there are some breathtaking pianissimos that whisper so confidingly that the voice almost cracks. And repeated-note figures, in the finale of K306, say, draw a huge tonal variety from Faust’s Strad. Melnikov’s piano, too, can ring, roar or gently croon, making some beguiling sounds in the Schubertian hymn of K304’s second movement.

Comparing the same sonatas in the two recordings has been instructive but has not made it any easier to decide whether either is more valid, whether one is preferable to the other. Each has satisfied in its own ways, making a simple choice between one or the other invidious. Nevertheless, for those attuned to the less refined sound of period instruments, Faust and Melnikov demand to be heard. (David Threasher / Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov / Salagon Quartet CÉSAR FRANCK Sonate pour Piano et Violon ERNEST CHAUSSON Concert

Chausson’s Concert for violin, piano and string quartet is chamber music, of course, yet displays a symphonic character that justifies the title. Some performances, such as the superb Decca recording by Pierre Amoyal, Pascal Rogé and the Ysaÿe Quartet, underscore the work’s quasi-orchestral heft; others, like the classic Columbia account by Zino Francescatti, Robert Casadesus and the Guilet Quartet, present a more intimate view. In this dazzling new version, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov and the Salagon Quartet seem to be staking out a middle ground.

Faust and the quartet use vibrato rather sparingly, which clarifies the often intricate texture and creates a luminosity that, while lacking in bite and body, conjures and maintains a spellbinding, moonlit atmosphere. Note, for example, the pearlescent opacity of the passage at 6'26" in the first movement, and the almost spectral quality at the beginning of the finale – worlds away from the playful (yet equally magical) reading by Francescatti, Casadesus et al. Yet there’s no lack of drama. Indeed, Faust, Melnikov and the Salagon frequently bring Chausson’s fascination with Wagner to the fore and even anticipate the languorous sensuality of Scriabin (listen from 4'35" in the first movement), thanks in large part to Melnikov’s judicious phrasing.

Franck’s Violin Sonata is equally impressive. Here, again, Faust uses vibrato prudently, and in general finds intense expressivity in restraint and emotional directness. Pianissimo passages beckon in secretive, confessional whispers, and the sometimes blunt rhetoric of Franck’s style is allowed to speak for itself without overemphasis or apology. The electricity of the third-movement Recitativo-Fantasia, for instance, is conveyed not with bold gestures but through quiet, sustained tension, so that even the most sparsely textured passage keeps one on the seat’s edge. Melnikov’s tone can harden in loud passages, but this may be partly the fault of the engineering, which is pleasingly resonant yet also strangely muffled. In any case, the interpretations are so committed and forthright that any occasional sonic blemish is only momentarily distracting. The Decca recording with Amoyal and Rogé offers the same coupling in better sound but seems overwrought in comparison. Those looking for greater passion and tonal warmth in this repertoire are urged to hear a recent Aparté release with Rachel Kolly d’Alba, Christian Chamorel and the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet. (Andrew Farach-Colton/ Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust ROBERT SCHUMANN

Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov begin their project to record all of Schumann’s concertos and piano trios using gut strings and a piano of Schumann’s time (a Streicher of 1847) with the most challenging two works of all. The tangled performance history of the Violin Concerto is well enough known by now – written in 1853 for Joseph Joachim to play, it was suppressed after Schumann’s death and not performed in public until the 1930s. Performances have remained sporadic though, and as Faust’s shows, even the finest violinists (and she is one of the very best around today) still struggle to make convincing sense of some passages, especially in the rather stop-start opening movement; there are moments here when the usually nimble Freiburg Baroque Orchestra sounds as if it is having to wade through musical treacle. Composed two years before, the G minor Piano Trio isn’t top-drawer Schumann either, especially when compared with the two earlier trios, but Faust and her colleagues have the knack of teasing out its lyrical beauties and giving all the music real lightness and transparency.

Alexander Melnikov ROBERT SCHUMANN

This is the second in a three-part series exploring Schumann’s concertos and piano trios on gut strings and a period piano, and as the slightly creepy cover photo spells out – shadows of violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras flank Alexander Melnikov like lurking henchmen – it is the pianist’s turn to shine. Melnikov is a steely player with plenty of ideas and charisma, but even in the finessed company of the Freiburg Baroque and conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, his bracing account of the Piano Concerto is hard to love. The first moment opens with a dry punch and hurtles ahead hell-for-leather; the second movement is breezy and borderline trite, and the finale digs in its heels with laboured earthiness and a self-conscious ping at the top of each phrase. All affectations evaporate in the Trio, though, where Faust’s sound is so silvery and expressive, so simultaneously commanding and questioning, that she risks blowing the rest of the disc out of the water. (The Guardian)

Jean-Guihen Queyras ROBERT SCHUMANN

The idea for this CD project arose during a tour on which we performed Robert Schumann’s Trio op.80. As passionate admirers of the composer, we conceived the desire to place his works for piano, violin, and cello in a broader context and to illuminate them mutually in order to allow listeners to gain a deeper understanding of his music. We soon agreed to play the pieces for this recording on a historical piano and stringed instruments with gut strings, using orchestral forces to match. Thanks to this, we expected our playing to be better balanced, better articulated, and more open-minded. 

Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester sprang spontaneously to mind as the ideal partners for a project of this kind. And indeed they took up our idea enthusiastically and were keen and irreplaceable fellow-conspirators in the world of Schumann. 

Our shared journey into the magical world of this incomparable composer will remain with us as an exceptionally intense, happy, and fulfilling experience. (Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov / Jean-Guihen Queyras)

Isabelle Faust / Ewa Kupiec BARTÓK Sonates

Bartok’s First Violin Sonata is notoriously reluctant to yield its secrets. Three expansive movements parade dissonances virtually by the bar; the total playing time is well over half an hour (38 minutes in this particular performance) and allows for absolutely no easing of intensity. The opening Allegro appassionato is a complex essay, to say the least: many have braved its pages and although most available recordings convey the scale of the movement, none is more comprehensively perceptive than this new CD by the young violinist Isabelle Faust. Harmonia Mundi count Faust among the “cream of the new generation of musicians” (this budget-price disc is one of a series devoted to Les Nouveaux Interpretes) and, on the evidence presented here, no one could rightly counter that claim. Ewa Kupiec, who will be familiar to some readers through her recordings on Koch Schwann, provides Faust with motivated support; not, perhaps, as leonine as Richter (with David Oistrakh) or Argerich (with Kremer), but always attentive to mood and detail.
Faust favours a sensual approach that draws active – and unexpected – parallels with the music of Berg. She ventures deep among the first movement’s more mysterious episodes: listen, for example, to her fragile tone projection from 6'27'' and follow it through for a couple of minutes. This is truly empathetic playing, candid, full of temperament and always focused securely on the note’s centre. The crescendoing processional that sits at the heart of the second movement (5'24'') is charged with suspense and the steely finale suggests an almost savage resolve (try the rocketing glissando ‘take-offs’ from, say, 3'48''). Faust and Kupiec visit corners and perspectives in this score that others merely gloss over, and the recording supports them all the way.
The Solo Sonata is virtually as impressive. Here Faust approaches the music from a Bachian axis: her tone is pure, her double-stopping immaculate (and never abrasive) and her sense of timing acute. She obviously relishes the score’s balance of colour and counterpoint, and her performance is distinguished by a combination of musical intuition and technical finesse (a good place to sample is 5'49'' into the first movement).
I would strongly urge you to purchase this superb disc, even if you already own recordings of both works. Still, as it’s a reviewer’s job to survey the field, I should remind you that Pauk and Jando on Naxos offer forthright performances of the two sonatas (plus Contrasts) and Menuhin is extraordinarily eloquent in the Solo Sonata. Either will do nicely, but Faust is a persuasive narrator; she and her piano partner break down barriers in the First Sonata that, for some readers, will mean the difference between approachability and continuing bafflement. Do give them a try.' (Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust FRANZ SCHUBERT Oktett

In response to a commission from Count Troyer, who wanted a work closely modelled on Beethoven’s famous Septet op.20, Schubert – despite his fervent admiration for the older composer – resolutely struck out on his own by delivering an . . . Octet. While the enlarged forces opened his path towards symphonic writing, examination of the form and expression reveals a much more accomplished and personal composition than has generally been recognised by commentators. Isabelle Faust and her partners, enthralled by what is an exceptional work in every respect, offer us a new interpretation of it on period instruments.

Alexander Melnikov / Isabelle Faust SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concertos - Sonata for Violin & Piano Op. 34

The programming of this recording by Alexander Melnikov seems to be no accident. The two large, witty, outward-looking piano concertos surround the more grave, inward-facing Violin Sonata the way a sonata's or concerto's two fast movements surround a slow movement. It's also a real reflection of Melnikov as a performer, schooled in the Russian tradition and mentored by Richter (the pianist of the first public performance of the Violin Sonata), who is as comfortable as a soloist as he is as a collaborative pianist playing chamber music. In that regard, Melnikov and Faust make their parts of the sonata equal partners in the music, bringing out the smallest details. It is generally held that the sonata is about death, and these two handle it with intensity and seriousness, but do not make it grim or frightful. In the concertos, Melnikov and conductor Teodor Currentzis are also well matched. In the slow movements, especially of the Concerto No. 2, Melnikov's touch is so soft and phrasing so lyrical as to give the music a sweetness normally associated with a Rachmaninov or Ravel concerto, and Currentzis follows his lead. The animation in the fast movements, where Shostakovich likes to use rapidly repeated notes, is not pointedly sharp, but is impressive and extremely engaging nonetheless. The finale of Concerto No. 1, when everyone -- including the very precise trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts -- gets going together is almost precipitously exciting. Yet it is Melnikov's sensitivity of touch that distinguishes his performance of these works from others'. (Patsy Morita)

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov CARL MARIA VON WEBER Sonatas for Piano & Violin - Piano Quartet

The unjustly neglected piano quartet (J76) was completed in September of the year 1809, which the 22-year-old Weber spent in Stuttgart. It was originally offered to the publisher Hans Georg Nägeli, but he rejected it, advising the composer that it created wanton ‘confusion in the arrangement of its ideas’ and indeed too obviously imitated the ‘bizarreries’ of Beethoven. However, the work was issued a year later by the Bonn firm of Beethoven’s friend and admirer Nikolaus Simrock, whose ears were more receptive to the peculiarities of the score than Nägeli. And in the following year, 1811, Simrock once again stepped into the breach in the matter of the publication of the Six Violin Sonatas (J99–104). These were written to a tight deadline in the late summer of 1810, on commission from the Offenbach publisher Johann Anton André, who had in mind a collection of short pieces of moderate difficulty for the domestic music-making of the upper middle classes. Unhappy with the concomitant artistic limitations, Weber took the commission only half-heartedly and repeatedly complained during the compositional process of this ‘swine of a job’, which cost him ‘more sweat than the same number of symphonies’. His annoyance was all the greater when André rejected the finished work out of hand because it did not correspond to his expectations. When Simrock finally published these pieces in Bonn in two instalments under the title 'Progressive sonatas for fortepiano with obbligato violin, composed for and dedicated to amateur musicians', with the opus number 10, Weber had only remotely followed André’s specifications. It is true that the technical demands on the performers, especially the violin, are fairly modest, but in terms of content the 6 short two- or three-movement sonatinas far outstrip mere pedagogical intentions.They were written to please amateurs, but quite as much to satisfy connoisseurs of any era. Isabelle Faust follows up the success of recent recordings for hm [Bach volume 2, Berg and Beethoven with Claudio Abbado] with regular partner Alexander Melnikov and her brother Boris, currently principal viola of the Bremer Philharmoniker, and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt of whom Mstislav Rostropovich has said: ‘Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt is one of the leading cellists of his generation, of our time’.

Isabelle Faust / Kristian Bezuidenhout J.S. BACH Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord

"Isabelle Faust has never cultivated the whale-boned red-carpet glamour that many female soloists feel obliged to pursue. On stage and off, the German violinist's manner is relaxed, her style understated. She sports a gamine, Jeanne d'Arc crop and, save for the tell-tale violinist's love-bite just below her jaw, you might guess her to be an architect or an academic. In a way, she is both, for an appreciation of musical structure and an interest in historical research are integral to her work.

The stillness of focus and purity of sound that has distinguished her playing can be heard in a repertoire stretching from Beethoven and Schubert through to Hartmann and Ligeti, on modern and period strings. Where other violinists dazzle, Faust is a thinker. On the subject of her own individual sound, she is hesitant: "Of course, I'm trying to be me in whatever repertoire I'm playing, and I do think that my work is different from that of other violinists – but actually I'm never really trying to keep to this idea of an individual sound. It's always my goal to get a different interpretation and also a different kind of voice particular to the voice of the composer." (Anna Picard / The Guardian)

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov BEETHOVEN Complete Sonatas for Piano & Violin

These are the most stimulating and fascinating accounts of the Beethoven violin sonatas I have heard in many years. Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov bring out the full quirkiness of the earlier works as well as their beauty, and their playing is remarkably accomplished throughout. Faust reflects the Viennese taste in Beethoven’s day for light, strongly articulated bowing, much of it ‘off-the-string’, with sparing vibrato.

Particularly fine is their account of the profoundly original last sonata, Op. 96. Melnikov and Faust allow its opening movement to unfold in leisurely fashion, and in an atmosphere of hushed lyricism, though their decision to append a ‘turn’ to the ubiquitous trill that forms such an integral part of the main subject’s melodic line may not be to everyone’s taste.

As for the Kreutzer Sonata, their performance of the opening movement contains a welcome detail that’s seldom heard. Shortly after the start of the presto main section the music’s momentum is momentarily halted by two fermatas (notated pauses), the second of which is filled in here with an improvisatory flurry of arpeggios from the piano.

When Beethoven himself rehearsed the piece with George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, the violinist for whom he originally wrote it, Bridgetower took it upon himself to imitate the piano when the same point was reached in the repeat, to Beethoven’s apparent delight. Bridgetower subsequently wrote down his improvisation in his copy of the printed violin part, and Isabelle Faust incorporates it into her performance.

I’m not so sure, however, that Beethoven would necessarily have approved of the occasional spontaneous change Faust and Alexander Melnikov make to some of the other sonatas: a few little melodic ornaments and alterations, the occasional exaggerated pause between phrases, the mannerism of ‘rolled’ left-hand piano chords, the reversal of dynamics in the repeats.

But nonetheless these stimulating performances demand to be heard. (Misha Donat / BBC Music Magazine)

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov SCHUBERT Sonate D.574 - Rondo op. 70 - Fantasie D.934

In nearly every respect this is outstanding. The Rondo brillant and the Fantasie, both written for the virtuoso duo of Karl von Bocklet and Josef Slawik, can sound as if Schubert were striving for a brilliant, flashy style, foreign to his nature. Both are in places uncomfortable to play (when first published, the Fantasie’s violin part was simplified), but you would never guess this from Faust’s and Melnikov’s performance; they both nonchalantly toss off any problem passages as though child’s play.

The Fantasie’s finale and the Rondo brillant are irresistibly lively and spirited, and this duo’s technical finesse extends to more poetic episodes – Melnikov’s tremolo at the start of the Fantasie shimmers delicately, while the filigree passagework in the last of the variations that form the Fantasie’s centrepiece have a delightful poise and sense of ease.

The Sonata’s more intimate style is captured just as convincingly; in all three performances Faust and Melnikov observe Schubert’s often very detailed, careful expression marks, not as a matter of duty but as a stimulus to the imagination, as a way of entering more deeply into the music.

The one slight reservation concerns Isabelle Faust’s manner of expression. She makes the most of any passionate phrases and is equally convincing at cool, mysterious or dreamlike moments. But the lyrical phrases in the Rondo’s introduction surely demand a more heartfelt utterance. In the Sonata, too, there are places where one longs for more warmth. This quibble aside, it’s a lovely disc, one to listen to over and over again. (Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust / Freiburger Barockorchester / Pablo Heras-Casado MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto - Symphony No. 5 - The Hebrides

After the mystical ‘Hebrides’ Overture and the masterly ‘Reformation’ Symphony, Mendelssohn embarked on his second violin concerto. After a long gestation in which he polished the orchestration and meticulously revised the solo part, the work was finally premiered in Leipzig in 1845. From David to Joachim, virtuosos honed the violin part with the composer over successive revivals, leaving to posterity traces of their playing style: fingering, bowing and score markings. This precious heritage has been scrutinised by Isabelle, as she did for her Brahms Violin Concerto recording, as a previously unexploited expressive resource. Isabelle Faust, accompanied by the Freiburger Barockorchester, in top form, under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado, offers us a miracle of purity and lyricism in a freshly-minted interpretation that fulfils Mendelssohn’s promise of ‘a concerto to make the angels rejoice in heaven’! (Presto Classical)

THORSTEN ENCKE A Portrait

A Portrait of the composer  Thorsten Encke „When you embark on an artistic project, structural considerations can serve as a spark of inspiration. Like an architect, you roll out a blueprint, jot down a series of notes, and establish a basic framework of interval relations. Then you thoughtfully furnish the interior by relating motifs to one another and assigning them dramatic roles within the musical narrative. All of this is certainly necessary. But then, new ideas take you on detours, unplanned inspiration imposes itself on your thoughts, and the structural spark of inspiration dwindles with each new effort. The work acquires a life of its own; it wants to grow beyond its former limits. As an artist, you have to surrender and try to sense where the journey leads you.
A wrestling match often arises between what was planned and what is possible: the delicate task of choosing the most promising path that branches off into the scrub. One needs to remain open to new possibilities while becoming confident in the consistency of one’s ideas. That is what inspiration is all about. One should always attempt to achieve a balance between formal construction and sheer inventiveness. Invention should take precedence over structure; in the best of cases, the latter remains under the surface as a kind of firm inner cohesion.
Invention is what shines in a work; it is what astounds the listener. On the other hand, an overtly visible structure is nothing more than a skeleton, placed in evidence to satisfy our anatomical curiosity. “Music is life; it is movement, rhythm, and Gestalt.” That is what a female audience member once said to me after a concert, and I agree. The listener has the right to expect such things from a musical work: movement, rhythm, and, most of all, Gestalt, e.g., a form one can grasp. The Gestalt confronts the listener and offers itself as a partner in dialogue. The listener decides whether she wants to enter into that dialogue; she decides how she perceives the Gestalt, and whether she will let herself be moved. If the listener is willing to actively participate in that process, she is creating the work herself. Only the Gestalt offers us an inkling of the great fabric of life, a shimmering reflection of eternity. Whenever music inspires a listener in this way, it manages to fulfill its most noble purpose.
As a composer, I spend many hours alone at my desk, painstakingly fleshing out my ideas. The written score reduces the vast array of sonorities I had previously imagined. It obliges me to formulate a clear vision, without blurring the contours. The score’s limitations force us to become inventive. The problem of notation in itself is what ultimately leads us to express ourselves in new ways. What is my current personal motto? This, perhaps: to retain a love of experiment in terms of content and expression; to remain clear in my musical language.