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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Janacek: Violin Sonata
This programme comprises three major 20th-century chamber works, all of them deeply rooted in the musical world of Central Europe. The pieces by Janac•ek and Szymanowski are exactly contemporary. Composed respectively at the beginning and the end of the 20th century, Szymanowski's 'Mythes' and Lutoslawski's 'Partita' constitute two landmarks of Polish music. “An exquisitely shaded performance of the Janacek Sonata sets up heady takes on Szymanowski's Mythes and the fizzing virtuosity of Lutoslawski's Partita.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2013 ***** | 
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| |  | Weber: Violin Sonatas & 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’. “Chamber music by Weber arrives as frequently as a blue moon. It’s almost as lovely, too, especially when Faust’s Stradivarius violin and Melnikov’s fortepiano duck and weave through these six pocket sonatas...Trinket music? Partly, yes; but very inventive, full of colour and surprises...The recording’s intimate, clear, and full-bodied: the musicians seem right in your living room.” The Times, 19th January 2013 ***** “Faust and Melnikov throw themselves into these remarkable works. The disc is valuable for rescuing the compact, breathtakingly inventive sonatas from obscurity. The quartet is similarly inspired, and performances and recording do the project proud” Classical Music, February 2013 “The musicians bring maximum enjoyment to each work, and the performances could hardly be better, Faust and Melnikov pushing the technical capabilities of their instruments in the Sonatas, with energy, virtuosity and affection – something to truly blow away the cobwebs!” classicalsource.com, 5th February 2013 “sensitive, expressive interpretations … They show remarkable unanimity and flair in Weber’s serene Piano Quartet, balancing Classical elegance, wit and sheer effervescence in the outer movements.” The Strad, March 2013 “Melnikov, with exuberance and senstivity, plays a fortepiano of about 1815, and Isabelle Faust (on a Stradivarius) is his lithe, discerning and thoroughly engaging companion.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2013 |
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| |  | JS Bach: Sonatas & Partitas BWV1001-3
Isabelle Faust hit the Classical charts earlier this year with her mesmerising recording of Beethoven and Berg with Claudio Abbado. She followed up with some welcome live appearances here in the UK, which included the Brahms' concerto at the Barbican with frequent collaborators Jiri Belohlavek and the BBCSO. Isabelle's recordings have won prizes since her harmonia mundi debut in 1997 which earned her a Gramophone Young Artist Award. In 2010 her Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Alexander Melnikov also won. The afore-mentioned Beethoven-Berg has been awarded Gramophone Recording of the Month, Daily Telegraph Classical CD of the Week, Times CD of the Week, Classic FM Disc of the Week, Sunday Times CD of the Week, BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month and CD Review Disc of the Week. Now she returns to J.S. Bach for a second volume of what Andrew McGregor described in such glowing terms: "there’s some of the best-judged ornamentation I’ve heard in repeated passages. The recording is utterly self-effacing, in just the right way, and my only complaint is that the job’s half done...I’m impatient for the rest! Harmonia Mundi is the label, it’s released this coming Monday, and the notes are excellent as well." CD Review, BBC Radio 3, 27 March 2010 Isabelle is shortlisted for the Gramophone Best Artist Award 2012. Her next concert in the UK is at the Wigmore Hall, October 29 with Alexander Melnikov and Jean-Guihen Queyras. “Certainly her break-neck tempi for the Corrente and Doubles of the Partita owe more to so-called “authentic” practitioners, but her spectrum of colours and expression — digging into her G-string for maximum intensity — harks back to the virtuoso tradition...She brings them vividly to life here, sounding as if they were fresh off the page.” Sunday Times, 19th August 2012 “As you would expect from this most immaculate and intelligent of today's violinists, the performances are very well prepared...Yet there is still a wonderful security and confidence about her approach, a flexibility in her phrasing, and a remarkable control of dynamic and colour.” The Guardian, 23rd August 2012 **** “In some of the most challenging violin music ever written, she displays masterly technique...Despite some daring tempos, Faust retains a totally secure pulse through all the technical contortions. She places admirable faith in Bach's fair copy of the score...[and] in alluringly sensitive in gentler movement.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 ***** “Unbeatable playing in the conclusion to a benchmark Bach project” The Strad, November/December 2012 “Faust’s playing of these extraordinary pieces of surpassing musical interest and lyrical content sits comfortably at the uppermost echelons of the league table … Faust is at her heart a poetic player with a warm sound, a tightly controlled vibrato and an athletic technique … A rewardingly stimulating release, beautifully recorded.” International Record Review, November 2012 “She creates a feeling that, although there is a deep musiucal understanding behind her performance in which she has quiet confidence, there is no overarching ego trying to make the intricate counterpoint bend to her will.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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The chamber works of Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) have long been seen as a window onto the German composer’s rigorous, intricate approach to composition and restrained yet Romantic style. This is true of his piano quartets; although he only composed three, in their individual characters and masterful control of musical material, they are an integral aspect of Brahms’s chamber output. The Piano Quartet in G minor Op.25, the earliest of Brahms’s works in this genre, reveals the composer’s great creativity. Based on short motifs that are continuously extended and combined to form larger structures, it draws on song-like melodies in the first movement and Hungarian folk music in the finale, to create a work that, at times, seems to stray into the territory of orchestral music. The second Quartet in A Op.26 is relaxed and expansive in comparison, with flowing, extended melodies that retain a sense of control and poise, while The Piano Quartet No.3 in C minor is the most dramatic, practically operatic in style. Since the initial release of this popular Brilliant Classics recording, its performers have gone from strength to strength. While Isabelle Faust has forged a reputation as one of the leading international violinists, particularly in chamber music, Derek Han, Bruno Giuranna and Alain Meunier are some of the most acclaimed musicians in their fields. Chamber music enthusiasts should not be without this world-class recording in their collections. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Beethoven & Berg: Violin Concertos
“My first collaboration with Claudio Abbado – with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in 2008 – opened my eyes to a new way of understanding and experiencing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. He then expressed the wish to perform Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, this time with the Orchestra Mozart. It seemed to him to be an obvious and natural continuation of the project to record these two works in further rehearsals and in concert and to produce a CD of them. To place these two masterpieces in such close proximity was something quite new for me. The rehearsals in Bologna in 2010 involved working on the two pieces directly after each other: the result was an intense journey through sorrow and suffering in Alban Berg, by way of the cathartic Bach chorale, to Beethoven at his most radiant, apparently leaving all earthly cares far behind him, which utterly enchanted every one of us. To make music with Claudio Abbado is an infinite joy, a genuine key to the magic of music. I would like to express here my sincerest thanks for his confidence and my boundless admiration for his artistry.” Isabelle Faust “listening to these wonderful performances side by side is cathartic...The journey is vividly delineated from the outset of the Berg. With Abbado drawing sonorities from his first-rate orchestra, Faust's limpid violin weaves subtly in and out of the music's dark and increasingly sorrowful fabric...The clouds immediately lift for the Beethoven...Faust's first entry is magical.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 ***** “Each note appears to shine with an inner glow...Under [Faust's] fingers, her Stradivarius produces an astonishingly varied range of sound to meet the demands of Berg’s concerto...The luminous sound of Abbado’s orchestra, a continuing glory, infuses the [Beethoven] concerto with a real sense of joy; I don’t know of any other interpretation that wears such a smile so lightly. Faust is a wonder on this disc, but Abbado is even more so.” The Times, 3rd February 2012 **** “Abbado’s hand-picked ensemble...produces a sound that is thoroughly apt to the particular world of each piece. Faust’s timbre and spectrum of emotion are similarly judged and communicated with arresting maturity and sensibility.
Likewise, she echoes the freshness and depth that Abbado stimulates in the orchestral playing of the Beethoven concerto, finding a mode of expression that is both lyrical and dynamic and contributing to a performance of real stature.” The Telegraph, 3rd February 2012 ***** “seamlessly reconciles intensity with gentle expressivity” Financial Times, 4th February 2012 “The Beethoven and Berg Violin Concertos aren't commonly paired on disc. However, in this case it seems like an inspired piece of programme planning, with an account of the Berg that plumbs its depths of melancholy, setting off a radiant, life-affirming performance of the Beethoven...Outstanding performances of both concertos, then; I'll want to return to them often.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2012 “Faust has already demonstrated her empathy with music from Bach to Jolivet, but her collaboration with Abbado is inspired. Indeed, both find more beauty in this challenging score than most interpreters on disc: Abbado gets sumptuous Middle European textures from his Bologna-based orchestra, also wonderfully transparent and airy in the Beethoven concerto, treated like expanded chamber music....A glorious disc.” Sunday Times, 26th February 2012 “The [Berg’s] expressive range, which includes vehemence as well as delicacy, is fully probed here.” Irish Times, 24th February 2012 **** “The unorthodox pairing...casts a curious spell in this thoughtful
performance...Faust's chaste, pale sound is offset against stained-glass woodwind and serene brass in the Berg, while bassoonist Guilhaume Santana is a glamorous dancing partner in the Beethoven.” The Independent, 4th March 2012 “Faust’s performance is special. There’s something warm and consolatory in her playing. She doesn’t overdo the sentimentality, and there’s as much rapture as regret. None of which would be possible without Abbado’s perfectly judged orchestral support; the violent outbursts in the second movement are rightly brutal and the work’s closing minutes are exquisite…Buy this disc for the Berg – possibly the work’s finest recording yet.” The Arts Desk, 21st April 2012  BBC Music Magazine
Disc of the month - April 2012 |
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| |  | Shostakovich: Piano Concertos
Shostakovich’s music is often 'two-faced', sometimes sublimated in ecstasy and joie de vivre, sometimes plunged into emptiness and suffused with a death wish. Accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Teodor Currentzis, Alexander Melnikov captures this feeling admirably in the Concertos Opp.35 and 102, and perhaps still more poignantly – “with disarming sincerity and fearless directness”, to quote his booklet note – alongside Isabelle Faust in the Sonata Op.134. “The coupling of the Second Piano Concerto and the Violin Sonata on this CD is by no means accidental. In terms of musical language the two pieces stand so far apart that it is difficult to comprehend how the same composer could have written them both. It is true that from its inception the sonata bore the stamp of ‘inaccessibility’, supposedly impossible for a listener to digest, and has never quite achieved the popularity of its counterparts for cello and viola. This music is as far from ‘easy listening’ as it gets. On the other hand the second movement of the Second Concerto is routinely included in ‘light classics’ compilations, broadcast by radio stations and played through headphones to airline passengers or CAT patients to ‘make them feel good’.” Alexander Melnikov “He makes his case well. The First Concerto is all rampaging dissonances and erotic regret; the Second (1957) masks nerve-racking syncopations beneath its surface brilliance...[the sonata] a compelling performance in which logic and rhetoric combine with tremendous intensity.” The Guardian, 9th February 2012 ***** “Here, Shostakovich’s 12-note melodies take on a peculiar, tonal cast, and the work’s emotional trajectory is made utterly absorbing...Melnikov’s approach to the Concerto no 1 makes the work a breezier, more optimistic affair than usual. He’s right – despite the minor-key histrionics, this is a youthful, confident display piece, composed before the repression of the Stalin years.” The Arts Desk, 25th February 2012 “his lightning switches of tempo and mood in the fast movement outdo most competitors for bizarrerie...Melnikov includes a searing, thrilling account of Shostakovich's late Violin Sonata, Op. 134, in which he partners the very impressive Isabelle Faust...Unhesitatingly recommended as one of the best versions of all three works currently available.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2012 ***** “The hide-and-seek games between piano and orchestra in the first movement are delectable enough. But then the slow movement...to call this breathtaking would be an understatement. Starting at a whisper, Melnikov fines his sound down to the threshold of audibility and extends phrase-endings until the world seems to stand still...For me, this is Shostakovich-playing on a level of inspiration I have only heard in my dreams.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2012 “I’ve never found Melnikov’s tone so pearly, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s strings have a discipline and suavity that are second to none. If you want Romanticism with a big R in the slow movements and plenty of fixed manic grins and wild funhouse careening elsewhere, this is as good as it gets.” Fanfare, 2nd September 2012 BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Choice - April 2012 |
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| |  | Isabelle Faust: Violin Sonatas & Concertos
“A splendid calling card from one of today's most outstanding and versatile violinists, who plays it all with equal ease.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ***** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Brahms: Violin Concerto & String Sextet No. 2Recorded Feb 2010, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao (Concerto) & Sept 2010, Teldex Studio Berlin (Sextet)
The booklet of Isabelle Faust’s new recording includes an essay written by her regarding the performing editions used and the significance of the violinist Joseph Joachim in the string works of Johannes Brahms, as seen from a performer’s point of view. Since Brahms did not belong to a generation of composers who mastered several different instruments – as had Bach or Mozart – and composed from the perspective of a pianist, his exchange of ideas with Joachim, which in the case of the Violin Concerto lasted almost a year, was of decisive importance for the final form of the piece, one of the most difficult in the repertoire. Isabelle uses the rarely played cadenza by Ferruccio Busoni, which dates from 1913. Brahms got to know Busoni as a child prodigy and recommended the young pianist in a number of artistic circles: ‘What Schumann did for me, I will do for Busoni.’ The spirit of Joseph Joachim also hovers over the second work on this recording, for the composer regarded the violinist as his most important adviser in the realm of chamber music too. In the case of his Sextet, however, the most perceptible influence is that of the doomed love affair between the composer and the soprano Agathe von Siebold. That Brahms was unable to overcome their separation with a light heart is clear from the monument in sound to his lost romance in the lyrical second theme of the first movement. ‘A-GA- D/H-E’1 proclaims the sequence of notes making up the motif (bars 162 ff). Isabelle generously credits Christopher Hogwood, Robert Pascall, Stefan Weymar and Douglas Woodfull-Harris for their active support in all questions relating to the manuscript and the first edition of Op.36 and for generously making available a prepublication copy of the new Bärenreiter edition. Gramophone Magazine gave Isabelle Faust its Young Artist of the Year Award for her first recording of sonatas by Béla Bartók, in 1997 [now reissued on hm gold with volume 2]. The year 2010 marked a new stage in her recording career: Diapason voted her CD of Bach Partitas and Sonatas a Diapason d’Or of the Year, while her complete set of the Beethoven Sonatas with Alexander Melnikov, received the Gramophone Award for Best Chamber Recording. Composed of around 40 musicians from 20 different nations, and independent of external sponsorship, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 by the players themselves and Claudio Abbado. In 1998, at the age of 22, Daniel Harding became Principal Guest Conductor; in 2003 he was named Music Director and he has served as Principal Conductor since 2008, conducting around a quarter of the orchestra’s projects each season. He is also Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO and Music Partner of the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. “a poetic player with an irresistibly warm sound, a tightly controlled vibrato and an athletic technique." BBC Music Magazine “Her performance is wonderfully proportioned...never grandiose nor unnecessarily rhetorical, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra supplying perfectly scaled support...those who prefer [their Brahms] expressively searching and introspective should love it, with the bonus of the delicate and deft account of the Sextet.” The Guardian, 24th February 2011 **** “Backed by detailed research into the metronome markings used by Joseph Joachim, the Violin Concerto’s dedicatee, Faust and Harding have come up with an interpretation that is restrained, slimmed-down and light on its feet.” The Telegraph, 25th March 2011 *** “Faust emphasises the sensitivity, the aching loneliness and doubt that lurks behind the music, and the best moments are the most unexpected...A refreshing take on repertoire that's often presented with more emphasis on macho punch. Top-notch, affectionate and imaginative playing from all concerned.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 ***** “The relatively small band of the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra supports [Faust] with an accompaniment of great textural clarity, yet this is in no way a small-scale performance. On the contraty, Faust is authoritative and passionate throughout, always alert to the rhapsodic aspects of this most innately classical of Romantic concertos...This is altogether an outstanding disc.” International Record Review, April 2011 “In the precise, exquisitely sensitive and understated vision of Isabelle Faust, it is one of the most beautiful and rapturous performances I have ever heard...Do not miss the gorgeous playing of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with conductor Daniel Harding: the texture is like velvet.” Glasgow Herald, 10th April 2011 “What makes Isabelle Faust's Violin Concerto special is that she both thinks and feels the music freshly...Equally valuable is the sense of interplay between Faust and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra .Strong personality though she is, she never treats the work as a star vehicle...the orchestra retains a presence, allowing the soloist to step centre stage but reacting discreetly to her thoughts.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2011 ***** “With a string section of just 32, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra achieve an unusual degree of clarity, with the important wind parts prominent. And Faust is often happy to allow soloists from the orchestra to take centre stage...the fiery parts of the concerto are particularly successful and the lyrical episodes very touching...this performance [of the Sextet] offers near-perfect balance and integration of sound” Gramophone Magazine, June 2011 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bartok - Violin Sonatas
“…outstanding…full of grit and fantasy” BBC Music Magazine, August 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | JS Bach: Sonatas & Partitas BWV1004-6
Isabelle Faust has gone back to the original manuscript sources to offer us her version of a masterpiece of the violin repertoire. In Bach’s time, music for solo instruments was still little explored territory, and his sonatas, partitas and suites immediately established themselves as a benchmark, technically challenging and brimming with creativity. Isabelle’s previous recording was our best selling title over the Christmas period. “Her serious dedication soars from her Stradivarius, a dark-toned beauty but capable of much silver light in its higher reaches...Faust’s wonderfully focused playing pulls you right inside the music, and magically makes you imagine the harmonies that Bach only implies.” The Times, 10th April 2010 **** “Faust's account of the music is gently voiced and eloquently inflected. Her lightly articulated bowing, which eschews anything in the nature of aggressive declamation, is a constant pleasure...a poetic player with an irresistably warm sound, a tightly controlled vibrato and an athletic technique.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2010 **** “Faust finds her own distinct path, using minimal vibrato but deploying varieties of tonal colouring and proving plucky enough to add pliability to a phrase or to pause momentarily for expressive effect...[She] plays with exuberance, grace and, in the gavotte, minuets, bourrée and gigue, with polished élan.” The Telegraph, 16th April 2010 **** “Quite often her playing allows a generous measure of rhythmic freedom...at other times she's concerned to maintain a strong momentum....In short, Faust has a magnificent grasp of this music. Hear her if you can!” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010 “Isabelle Faust has made a special impression as a deep, thoughtful, unshowy player, and these qualities make her ideally suited to the great Bach solo works...her command of the big structures, especially the huge C major Fugue and D minor Chaconne, is superb.” The Observer, 27th June 2010 “[Faust's] sound is deliciously straight with little or no vibrato, and bowed with such sensitivity to Bach’s phrasing that you could almost kid yourself at times that she’s using a baroque bow. But a couple of features are especially telling: her instinct for ornamentation in the repeats, and the sense of cumulative musicianship” Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 24th June 2010 “Her thoughtful approach is well suited to such searching music, and while there have been warmer, more spontaneous and expressively charismatic performances, few can match Faust’s intellectual concentration, purity and poise.” Financial Times, 11th August 2012 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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