Solo
Guillemain: Amusement pour le violon seul; Vilsmayr: Partita No. 5 in G minor; plus works by Biber, Matteis the Younger, Matteis the Elder and Pisendel
Isabelle Faust (violin)
Harmonia Mundi HMM902678 54:29 mins
Isabelle Faust’s compelling programme of Baroque works for solo violin draws a series of fascinating connections between Italian, English, French and Austro-Germanic composers, and it makes the perfect companion to her memorable recording of Bach’s solo violin works.
Faust’s starting point is a clutch of pieces by Nicola Matteis, father and son – London-based Italians whose lyrical and virtuosic idiom took England by storm. The Ayres by Matteis Senior, whom Roger North dubbed the ‘stupendious Violin Signor’, have a real sense of improvisatory freedom in Faust’s hands, while the virtuosic Fantasia by Matteis Junior positively takes wing, so breathtakingly light is her reading of its impulsive arpeggios.
Impressive, too, is Faust’s account of the celebrated violinist Pisendel’s A minor Sonata – a tour de force that may have influenced Bach. Notwithstanding the work’s many technical challenges, Faust’s playing is poised and effortless. She uses minimal vibrato, producing a clean, silvery sound.
The programme also unveils some less-well-known names: the Frenchman Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (whom a contemporary praised as ‘the most extraordinary and adroit violinist’) and the Austrian Johann Joseph Vilsmayr. Faust realizes Guillemain’s delightful Amusements with grace and refinement – apt for the courtly French idiom – while she carries off Vilsmayr’s G minor Partita with balletic agility. Vilsmayr played in the Salzburg court orchestra directed by Heinrich Biber, whose famous ‘Guardian Angel’ Passacaglia from the Rosary Sonatas closes the programme. Faust shapes this monumental piece most eloquently, drawing a remarkable range of colours and sonorities from her 1658 violin by Jacobus Stainer. Kate Bolton-Porciatti