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Written more than a century apart, the Berg and Beethoven violin concertos are not often considered a natural pairing – but that is exactly how they come across on this new album. These fresh-sounding performances by violinist Isabelle Faust, under the peerless guidance of Claudio Abbado and his specially assembled Orchestra Mozart, make a compelling case for matching the 1930s angst-ridden, serial-inflected Berg with Beethoven's optimistic first flush of early 18th century romanticism.
The album begins with Berg, the dark intensity of its opening enhanced by the atmospherically reverberant acoustic of the Manzoni Auditorium in Bologna where the recordings were made. The shadowy soundworld is deeply evocative, yet the transitory wind and brass solos flit into the light with absolute clarity. Faust enters with sinewy silkiness, caressing the solo line with a tangible sense of longing. She combines a supremely beautiful tone with a sense of purpose throughout, and blends homogeneously with the vast – though sparingly employed – orchestral forces.
Berg wrote the concerto in an ultimately futile attempt to overcome his trauma at the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius. Though tragic, Abbado and Faust offer an agile view of the work painted in subtle light and shade. The macabre waltz has a mesmeric buoyancy; with Abbado's expert woodwind balancing, the cathartic Bach chorale sounds as if it really is being played on an organ. The whole experience is extraordinarily moving.
If you play the album continuously, the warmth of Beethoven's opening bars emerges miraculously from Berg's valedictory bleakness. Abbado's Beethovenian credentials are second to none. He captures the first movement's epic grandeur, while ensuring a sense of flow with a relatively brisk tempo and nimble articulation. But whereas the generous acoustic bloom is an asset to the Berg, here it often blurs Abbado's carefully planned detail. Some of the orchestral tuttis lack the last ounce of urgency and excitement, but that is not a problem in the joyously gambolling finale, which has an especially thrilling coda.
Faust's sweet tone is consistently delightful, and she imparts due weight to the music with a light touch and comparatively sparing vibrato. Her invigorating performance offers an abundance of cogent new insights into one of the most well-loved concertos in the repertoire.
--Graham Rogers
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Review
Coupling arguably the two greatest violin concertos of the 19th and 20th centuries might seem too much of a good thing, but in these outstandingly played and conducted versions, the pairing seems quite logical, even illuminating...[Faust's] collaboration with Abbado is inspired. Indeed, both find more beauty in this challenging score than most interpreters on disc...A glorious disc. --Hugh Canning, CD OF THE WEEK, Sunday Times, 26 February 2012
VIOLINIST Isabelle Faust has matured to the point where we should now regard her as one of the great artists of our time. You can chart her progress through her recordings of Bartok, Bach and Beethoven. Then last year, with Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, she reached new heights of sophistication and refinement with one of the most beautiful recordings of Brahms's Violin Concerto I have heard. And now, with her new recording of the Violin Concertos by Berg and Beethoven, she advances again, this time with Claudio Abbado and his creamy Orchestra Mozart. The emotional depths Faust uncovers in the Berg are utterly moving and profound, with a strange kind of serenity in the "Bach Chorale" section, in parallel with the poignancy. The Beethoven, an astounding performance from all the forces, is quite simply life-affirming, with a breathtaking cadenza, freely adapted from Beethoven's own cadenza written for a reduced transcription of the concerto. Amazing. --Michael Tumelty, Sunday Herald, 26 February 2012
There s something extra- special about the way Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado bring a sense of tentative wonder and discovery to the opening of the Berg Violin Concerto. [An] illuminating performance. --MICHAEL DERVAN, Irish Times, 24 February 2012
VIOLINIST Isabelle Faust has matured to the point where we should now regard her as one of the great artists of our time. You can chart her progress through her recordings of Bartok, Bach and Beethoven. Then last year, with Daniel Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, she reached new heights of sophistication and refinement with one of the most beautiful recordings of Brahms's Violin Concerto I have heard. And now, with her new recording of the Violin Concertos by Berg and Beethoven, she advances again, this time with Claudio Abbado and his creamy Orchestra Mozart. The emotional depths Faust uncovers in the Berg are utterly moving and profound, with a strange kind of serenity in the "Bach Chorale" section, in parallel with the poignancy. The Beethoven, an astounding performance from all the forces, is quite simply life-affirming, with a breathtaking cadenza, freely adapted from Beethoven's own cadenza written for a reduced transcription of the concerto. Amazing. --Michael Tumelty, Sunday Herald, 26 February 2012
There s something extra- special about the way Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado bring a sense of tentative wonder and discovery to the opening of the Berg Violin Concerto. [An] illuminating performance. --MICHAEL DERVAN, Irish Times, 24 February 2012
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Pairing concertos can be a great challenge. But Isabelle Faust has really thrown down the gauntlet by attempting both the Berg and Beethoven Violin Concertos within one recording. These are two supreme masterpieces: the former an aching confession; the latter a spry riot of style and symphonism. With Claudio Abbado as an idiomatic though never dogmatic presence on the disc, Faust does the impossible. She plunges the depths of the Berg, while totally commanding the heights of the Beethoven.
The Beethoven has, thankfully, been placed second on this recording (though is reviewed first). There is little ultimately to link these two works, though their sheer emotional variance gives rich yin and yang. In the Beethoven, Faust is elegant, punchy and vital. Her bow flies off the strings in the Rondo. Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart oblige with equally animated responses in this Classical cat and mouse. Although touched by a historically informed hand, this is nonetheless a romantic interpretation and the first movement delivers bold symphonic grandeur. Playing with heft and delicacy in equal measure, Faust is a prime contendor for this work.
Before such thrilling rhetoric, however, Berg offers the shock of emotional honesty. Hallucinatory, introverted, calm, Abbado unfolds its painful narrative through a slow but certain bloom. He avoids Beethovenian analysis while drawing individual lines with Mahlerian clarity. Faust is placed within the orchestra, another voice in the aching threnody. Where in the Beethoven, Faust's velvet-clad iron fist gave bounce, here it speaks of unedited emotion. The appearance of the Bach chorale at the end of the concerto slow pulls us out of our grief-stricken reverie, preparing us for the untrammelled joy of the Beethoven.
Although the disc is a recovery from intense mourning, the Berg has such power that you cannot help but wallow (and repeat) Faust and Abbado's performance. Yet the Beethoven is always there, offering a sunny counterpart and buttress. This is a wonderful recording of two pivotal works that you will listen to time and time again.
The Beethoven has, thankfully, been placed second on this recording (though is reviewed first). There is little ultimately to link these two works, though their sheer emotional variance gives rich yin and yang. In the Beethoven, Faust is elegant, punchy and vital. Her bow flies off the strings in the Rondo. Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart oblige with equally animated responses in this Classical cat and mouse. Although touched by a historically informed hand, this is nonetheless a romantic interpretation and the first movement delivers bold symphonic grandeur. Playing with heft and delicacy in equal measure, Faust is a prime contendor for this work.
Before such thrilling rhetoric, however, Berg offers the shock of emotional honesty. Hallucinatory, introverted, calm, Abbado unfolds its painful narrative through a slow but certain bloom. He avoids Beethovenian analysis while drawing individual lines with Mahlerian clarity. Faust is placed within the orchestra, another voice in the aching threnody. Where in the Beethoven, Faust's velvet-clad iron fist gave bounce, here it speaks of unedited emotion. The appearance of the Bach chorale at the end of the concerto slow pulls us out of our grief-stricken reverie, preparing us for the untrammelled joy of the Beethoven.
Although the disc is a recovery from intense mourning, the Berg has such power that you cannot help but wallow (and repeat) Faust and Abbado's performance. Yet the Beethoven is always there, offering a sunny counterpart and buttress. This is a wonderful recording of two pivotal works that you will listen to time and time again.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lots of new performances of the Beethoven Violin Concerto are issued each year. The recent crop has included many that are worthwhile. But I suppose few will come to count in the greater scheme of things: how many can give you a sense that they will long be in the lists of the most recommendable? This one by Isabelle Faust probably does count. It is the way her playing is so spontaneous together with her very evident charisma that makes it special. Her violin sings and we have a sense of eavesdropping on the flights of melody that bring to your mind fanciful images like a maiden singing by a river and birdsong! But, no doubt, the spontaneity is a magical illusion for this is a performance that satisfies us deeply as well as charming us: there is a sense of profound, rapt simplicity in much of Faust's playing. We are never in doubt that this is one of the truly great violin concertos. Interestingly, this is the second account of the Beethoven concerto that Faust has committed to disc. I've not heard the other one but it also is supposed to be very good Beethoven - Violin Concerto; Kreutzer Sonata (Isabelle Faust/Alexander Melnikov).
The same qualities make this account of Berg's beautiful concerto (it is indeed an ideal partner for the Beethoven) something even more special. We get far fewer accounts of the Berg and one of this quality is a very rare event. Here the angel remembered may truly be an angel but the memory is no mere idealisation and the angel no disembodied spirit. It is a very real and earthy angel: human as well as beautiful. Berg's modernism is fully intact. Abbado, of course, has always had a special way with Berg and here, too, he gives us the Romantic and the Impressionist sides of Berg's language as a unity. This is a stunning disc.
The same qualities make this account of Berg's beautiful concerto (it is indeed an ideal partner for the Beethoven) something even more special. We get far fewer accounts of the Berg and one of this quality is a very rare event. Here the angel remembered may truly be an angel but the memory is no mere idealisation and the angel no disembodied spirit. It is a very real and earthy angel: human as well as beautiful. Berg's modernism is fully intact. Abbado, of course, has always had a special way with Berg and here, too, he gives us the Romantic and the Impressionist sides of Berg's language as a unity. This is a stunning disc.
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
In these two contrasting syles of music a broad expertise of interpretation is required. Isabelle Faust performs majestically and shows a genius command of the extent of her technique and interpretion that creates a classic album of the highest quality.
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