Isabelle Faust
Review: A late maestro switch and an inspired violinist make for fresh, illuminating Beethoven with NSO
From Washington Classical Review
By Steve Silverman
The National Symphony Orchestra concert on Thursday night was marked by some unexpected drama with an indisposed Christoph Eschenbach bowing out and the scheduled all-Beethoven concert led by Emmanuel Tjeknavorian in his place.
A prize-winning concert violinist, Tjeknavorian only started conducting three years ago. Nonetheless, the 30-year old Armenian-Austrian made an auspicious U.S. podium debut leading the NSO Thursday night at the Kennedy Center.
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The finale of the symphony would have benefited from more abandon and there could have been more of a lamenting expression from the violins in the second movement, but these are matters of taste. The symphony throughout had the proper rollicking, up-on-its-toes feel that inspired Wagner’s felicitous description “the apotheosis of the dance.”
Isabelle Faust was the evening’s soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. She has the complete package of seraphic top notes, impeccable intonation, free bow arm, faultless double stops and virtuosity to burn. (The ascending scale in fast thirds in an interpolated cadenza in the third movement was tossed off with ease.).
Passagework was never routine, but instead was impeccably phrased, and given melodic contour. She also wasn’t afraid to play with a vibrato-less tone, which is both stylistically appropriate and made the addition of vibrato a real event.
Tjeknavorian, who likely has performed the solo part, proved to be an estimable accompanist and the orchestra was with Faust at every point. She was able to play with an unforced sound, and to take plenty of well-chosen tempo fluctuations, without concern for balance or ensemble. Especially eloquent was the variation in the slow movement where strings play the theme pizzicato while the solo violin plays a celestial obligato. The whole movement in fact seemed to take place in suspended time, a tribute to both performer and orchestra.
There were a few unusual features of the performance. The soloist played along with the first violins for extended passages in the tuttis of both outer movements of the concerto. She added cadenzas between the second and third movement, and in two spots within the third movement. And she utilized Beethoven’s oddball cadenza for the first movement (written for the piano arrangement of the concerto, and re-transcribed for violin), which includes participation by the timpani.