★★★★★ Faust and Harding unite for a deeply touching Bartok Second Violin Concerto

Bartok: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

Sometimes a recording moves the listener in a personal way, making it difficult to translate the impact into words. I feel that way about this Bartok Second Violin Concerto from Isabelle Faust with Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony. My love for this concerto is limitless, and to hear interpreters capturing its meaning with such inspiration has left me on the verge of tears, no, actually wiping them.

The disc starts out with the First Violin Concerto, which isn't nearly as successful as Bartok's following masterpiece. I own a splendid version of the concerto from Gidon Kremer with Pierre Boulez and the Berlin Philharmonic, a recording the maximizes the depth and sonority of the Berliners. Here the mood is lighter and more austere, without the dark plunges. It's subdued, so the sound world of the piece comes across very gently.The mood is almost too withdrawn. Harding's accompaniment is backseat, reducing the intensity. It doesn't hurt to take your time in this music, though, and the sensitivity and nuance are striking. I certainly prefer Kremer, but there's a rustic feel here that will keep me returning on occasion.

There's much more competition in the Second Concerto, but Faust and Harding find insight that propels this reading to the top of the list. Harding starts out with a pensive, seeking quality, and Faust joins right in sounding fervent and spontaneous. In many ways this concerto is brutal, but here the level of sensitivity is gripping. The balance is perfect. Harding catches the explosive outbursts from the brass with startling realism, yet this is a movingly inward reading. By highlighting the heartbroken melancholy, we are drawn deeper in Bartok's world, one that focuses on personal loss in the midst of seemingly cataclysmic destruction.

I found fault in a superbly played reading from Gil Shaham and Pierre Boulez because there was a detachment from the emotional canvas of the work. The magic of this interpretation is that Faust finds a way to be strikingly beautiful, but never for sheer beauty's sake. She digs into notes with tenderness, as paradoxical as that sounds. The thoughtfulness builds the interpretation, in a breathless, harrowing kind of way. I found my heart nearly stopping on multiple occasion. Take the start of the second movement, for instance, where the phrasing is calm and peaceful, yet there's an inner sighing that is painfully human.

I really can't praise this performance enough. Even though Harding's Swedish Radio Symphony isn't on par with the best orchestras, it hardly matters when Harding catches the inner drama, more so than Boulez with the Chicago Symphony or Zubin Mehta with the Berliners. Faust is beyond words.