Isabelle Faust - Mendelssohn

The Guardian 100

Faust/Freiburger Barockorchester/Heras-Casado
(Harmonia Mundi)

Isabelle Faust gives the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto a good shakedown with the help of the Freiburger Barockorchester and conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. It’s rare to hear such a hoary old work sound so fresh. Her playing and that of the orchestra is long of line but short on vibrato, and the pursuit of an authentic Mendelssohnian style leads Faust to some choices that will have modern listeners doing an aural double take – notably some very swoopy slides: there are passages in the slow movement that sound as if played with just one finger. And yet the whole thing hangs together – it’s raw-edged, urgent and not always beautiful, but always compelling. Alongside this, Heras-Casado conducts a refreshingly transparent account of the Hebrides Overture in which you can almost feel the sea spray, and an exhilarating, ultimately jubilant performance of the Reformation Symphony, all high-church veneer stripped away.