Your guide to classical music online

Faust’s Reissued Haydn Hits The Mark

David Vernier

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

It took a little digging, but in fact it turns out that this “new” 2016 release of three Haydn violin concertos by Isabelle Faust actually is a reissue—the original is from nearly 10 years ago, but if, like me, you missed it the first time around, you won’t really care when it was made. This is a very fine program featuring some of the more immediately engaging works in the violin repertoire, played as well as you will hear them, no matter how old or new the performance.

Faust and her partners play these concertos as I remember them, before, say, the 1980s when performers started to get the idea that somehow messing with tempo and tone and decades of violin technique was truer to the original text and to the composer’s intention. Violin students in the 1950s and ’60s played Haydn as a virtual requirement to scaling the ladder of technical and stylistic achievement on the way to recognition as a fully-rounded artist. Actually, if you had seriously mastered Haydn, you could have stopped there and been well equipped with everything you needed to tackle the trials and challenges of everything that came after.

But never mind. When you hear these three concertos, at least one of which is from the early 1760s (the others perhaps from an earlier date), you’re drawn in by the bright, clearly articulated playing, the vibrant projection of life and personality so integral to Haydn’s music, the lightness and light of the melodies and their resonant harmonic partnering. Faust is an artist known for her consistency—of technique, interpretive imagination, and, not least, for her dynamic communicative relationship with her audience. (I saw this first hand recently in a concert in Prague.) And she projects all of these qualities in this very delightful hour-long recital.

As I researched the background of this recording, I encountered some reviews in the British press maligning the contribution of the German orchestra accompanying Faust. Nonsense. The Munich musicians play their role—and their music—just fine, with proper style and world-class ensemble expertise. It’s also a plus that Faust plays the 1704 Stradivarius known as the “Sleeping Beauty”. Recommended.

« Back to Search Results


Recording Details:

  • HAYDN, JOSEPH:
    Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in C major Hob. VIIa:1; Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in A major Hob. VIIa:3; Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in G major Hob. VIIa:4

Search Music Reviews

Search Sponsor

  • Insider Reviews only
  • Click here for Search Tips

Visit Our Merchandise Store

Visit Store
  • Ideally Cast Met Revival of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette
    Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, NY; March 19, 2024—The Met has revived Bartlett Sher’s 1967 production of Gounod’s R&J hot on the heels of its
  • An Ozawa Story, November, 1969
    Much has justifiably been written regarding Seiji Ozawa’s extraordinary abilities and achievements as a conductor, and similarly about his generosity, graciousness, and sense of humor
  • Arvo Pärt’s Passio At St. John The Divine
    Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, NY; January 26, 2024—When one thinks of musical settings of Christ’s Passion, one normally thinks of the