Isabelle Faust

In this mimodrama inspired by a Russian tale, Stravinsky and Ramuz revisit the myth of Faust : by selling the devil his violin in exchange for the book that guesses the future, the soldier will lose his soul.

The poetics of space and the art of time, high-precision mechanism, rhythmic exhilaration . . .

More than a century after the historic scandal of its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, The Rite of Spring has established itself as one of the ‘musts’ of the modern orchestral repertory.

During Bach's lifetime, music for an unaccompanied melody instrument was still little explored territory, and his sonatas, partitas, and suites for solo violin or solo cello immediately established themselves as a high benchmark, unprecedented in their formidable technical challenges and infinite creativity.

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin go back a long way together! This recording, made with the welcome participation of Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit, follows the complete violin concertos (2019), which left a lasting impression.

In the autumn of 1851 Schumann composed, in rapid succession, the two violin sonatas and, in the space of just seven days from 2 to 9 October, the Piano Trio no.3, Op.110. As always during his work, Schumann was oblivious to everything around him, neglected social obligations, and isolated himself even from Clara. Robert is working very assiduously on a trio for piano, violin, and cello, she confided to her diary, but he won t let me hear anything of it until he has quite finished it all I know is that it s in G minor.

Locatelli was one of the most impressive violin virtuosos of the first half of the eighteenth century. Considered today as a sort of Baroque Paganini, he left picturesque, colourful, strikingly modern pieces for his instrument.

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.

Isabelle Faust's first recording for harmonia mundi, Bartok Sonatas, won her a Gramophone Young Artist of the Year. Here she returns to Bartok, perfoming the two concertos, accompanied by Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio SO.

Born in Prague in 1979, the composer, conductor and chorus master Ondrej Adámek, who studied in his Czech hometown and in Paris, has already won numerous prestigious awards for his orchestral, chamber, vocal and electro-acoustic music. In his musical language, which also repeatedly incorporates elements of distant cultures, he creates unusual musical narratives. He seeks the authenticity of his interpretations by combining voices and movements, gestures and theatricality, phonetic and semantic aspects, and his own specially developed musical instruments.