Isabelle Faust
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Beethoven & Berg: Violin Concertos
RecommendedIsabelle Faust (violin)
Orchestra Mozart, Claudio Abbado
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,... —
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 13th February 2012
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Building a Library, October 2015, First Choice
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2013, Orchestral Finalist
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BBC Music Magazine, April 2012, Disc of the month
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Gramophone Magazine, March 2012, Disc of the Month
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Presto Favourites, Recommended Recording
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Gramophone Awards, 2012, Winner - Concerto
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Debussy: Les Trois Sonates, The Late Works
RecommendedThe Three Sonatas
Isabelle Faust (violin), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Tanguy de Williencourt (piano), Magali Mosnier (flute), Antoine Tamestit viola), Xavier de Maistre (harp), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Javier Perianes (piano)
Until recently this music was almost invariably viewed and experienced through a prism of 19th-century rhetoric – listening to Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov deftly tracing the evanescent... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, November 2018, Editor's Choice
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Presto Recording of the Week, 16th November 2018
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2018
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BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2018, Chamber Choice
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2019, Finalist - Chamber
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2019, Winner - Chamber
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Gramophone Awards, 2019, Winner - Chamber
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International Classical Music Awards, 2019, Nominee - Chamber Music
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JS Bach: Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord
RecommendedIsabelle Faust (violin) & Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord)
The music should always wear its deft counterpoint lightly, wide-eyed as a spring day. In their new recording Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout understand this perfectly…However uplifting... —
Awards:
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Presto Editor's Choice, January 2018
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Gramophone Magazine, March 2018, Editor's Choice
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Record Review, 13th January 2018, Recording of the Week
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2018
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Limelight Magazine Recordings of the Year, 2018, Nominated - Chamber
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Schumann: Piano Quartet & Piano Quintet
Isabelle Faust (violin), Anne-Katharina Schreiber (violin, Antoine Tamestit (viola), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Alexander Melnikov (piano)
The Quintet is a brilliant virtuoso vehicle with a symphonic tone but these five musicians don’t turn it into a quasi-piano concerto with string quartet, as sometimes occurs. Rather, they meld... —
Awards:
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Gramophone Awards, 2024 Winners, Chamber
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International Classical Music Awards, 2025, Nominated - Chamber Music
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Gramophone Magazine, Critics' Choice 2024
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Schubert: Octet
Isabelle Faust (violin), Anne Katharina Schreiber (violin), Danusha Waskiewicz (viola), Kristin von der Goltz (cello), Lorenzo Coppola (clarinet), Javier Zafra (bassoon), Teunis van der Zwart (horn), James Munro (double bass)
There is much to admire here: some exquisitely wistful clarinet phrasing from Coppola, and a frightening fierceness in the sudden outburst that heralds the finale, where Schubert seems momentarily... —
Awards:
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Presto Editor's Choice, May 2018
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The Times Records of the Year, 2018
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Britten: Violin Concerto, Chamber Works
RecommendedIsabelle Faust (violin), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Boris Faust (viola), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Jakub Hrůša
Faust’s cadenza has real emotional involvement, and builds urgently towards the final Passacaglia, where conductor Jakub Hrůša leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to a full-toned climax,... —
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 12th April 2024
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Gramophone Awards, 2024 Winners, Concerto
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalists 2024
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International Classical Music Awards, 2025, Nominated - Assorted Programs
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JS Bach: Violin Concertos
RecommendedIsabelle Faust (violin), Bernhard Forck, (violin), Xenia Loeffler (oboe)
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Faust's tone is both lean and exquisitely sweet, combined with consistent stylistic elegance which reaches the heights of eloquence in the slow movement of the E major Concerto. —
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 15th March 2019
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Gramophone Magazine, April 2019, Editor's Choice
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BBC Music Magazine, June 2019, Concerto Choice
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Building a Library, November 2019, Also Recommended
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2019
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International Classical Music Awards, 2019, Nominee - Baroque Instrumental
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Gramophone Magazine, December 2019, Critics' Choice
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Opus Klassik Awards, 2020, Nominee - Instrumentalist of the Year
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Across the whole cycle their intuitive rapport never falters and, feeding off each other, the sparks they generate meld the fragments into something greater than the sum of their parts...Kurtág... —
Awards:
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Presto Recording of the Week, 19th August 2022
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BBC Music Magazine, October 2022, Recording of the Month
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2022
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International Classical Music Awards, 2023, Nominated - Contemporary Music
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The Guardian Classical Albums of the Year, 2022
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BBC Music Magazine Awards, 2023, Nominated - Vocal
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Opus Klassik Awards, 2023, Nominated - Solo Instrumental
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Locatelli: Il Virtuoso, Il Poeta
Violin Concertos & Concerti Grossi
Isabelle Faust (violin), Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
Faust brilliantly masters the high-wire acrobatics of Locatelli’s writing, which includes almost ear-piercingly high playing positions, extreme left-hand extensions, double stops and all manner... —
Awards:
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International Classical Music Awards, 2024, Nominated - Baroque Instrumental
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Opus Klassik Awards, 2024, Winner - Instrumentalist of the Year
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Schoenberg: Violin Concerto & Verklärte Nacht
RecommendedIsabelle Faust (violin), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding
The secret of her success lies in her ability to bring an immense amount of poetry and fantasy to the immensely complex solo part…As a result, the listener gets drawn into the drama of the musical... —
Awards:
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Record Review, 29th February 2020, Record of the Week
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Gramophone Awards, 2020, Shortlisted - Concerto
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2020
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