I've written about this violinist and this concerto before—when making my Beethoven Pancakes—but last night I saw Isabelle Faust perform it with the OSM conducted by Bernard Labadie.
How good was last night's performance? Well, this morning I thought about playing her recording of it in order to relive the show, but instead I bought a ticket for today's performance and went to see her again. I choked up at the end of the first and second movements and exploded with joy at the end of the third—both times.
The concerto is phenomenally good, I knew that. Faust is a technically brilliant violinist with an exquisite tone, I knew that too. What I didn't know was how charismatic she is on stage. In both performances she moved expressively with the music, her face bright with the joy of playing. She engaged in different passages with the conductor, with the cellists, the violinists. There was a real sense of her inviting the audience into the music that went far beyond performing for us.
In short, these were probably the best classical music concerts I've ever been to.
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| Isabelle Faust & Bernard Labadie Oct. 9th, 2025, La Maison Symphonique |
