“The masterpieces are coming thick and fast for Isabelle Faust,” writes David Patrick Stearns in Thursday’s (5/28) Philadelphia Inquirer. “Seemingly out of nowhere (at least for American concertgoers), the 36-year-old Berlin-based violinist is scaling one repertoire peak after another in visible places. Her acclaimed Beethoven Violin Concerto recording trumped most comparisons, she has further recording dates with the three Bs (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms), and she is making her Philadelphia Orchestra debut this week playing the mighty Brahms Violin Concerto. … Faust’s historical research is exhaustive. She hunts fresh cadenzas as if they were big game. But complexity isn’t her friend. ‘I feel more moved by things if they’re as naked as possible, as innocent as possible. If I put a lot of varnish on [a piece of music], it doesn’t move me anymore. That’s my way of being the most intimate and the most true,’ she said Wednesday at the Kimmel Center, waiting to rehearse the program she’ll play four times, tonight through Sunday.” The Curtis Institute-educated Faust made her U.S. debut in 1995 with the Utah Symphony, but has built most of her career in Europe.
Posted May 28, 2009
