Isabelle Faust and Friends review, Wigmore Hall: Spirited performance delivered under violinist’s leadership

Bartok composed his Sonata for Solo Violin at the end of his life and to a commission from Yehudi Menuhin, and lived just long enough to hear the premiere. Both men had initially feared its complex double-stoppings would be unplayable, but the great British violinist found a way. An implicit homage to Bach, it’s the pinnacle of 20th-century fiddle virtuosity which players approach with caution: at the Wigmore the latest entrant into the lists is the German violinist Isabelle Faust.

She may be one of the foremost players of her generation, but even she has trouble with the opening chaconne: taking it too fast, she slightly smudges her intonation – the music doesn’t have the marmoreal precision it needs. But from the fugue onwards she’s totally in control, and delivers a brilliant performance.

After which the rest of her evening, during which she takes the lead in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, is playtime. Stravinsky wrote this work while in exile in neutral Switzerland during the First World War. He was worried about his wife’s health, and grieving over the death of his governess and brother; drawing on Russian folk tales, and collaborating with exiled Russian dancers, he wanted to create something that would resonate with the angst-ridden times.

It’s a latter-day version of the Faust myth: its hero is a soldier-violinist trying to make his way home after war. He meets the Devil and makes a pact with him, offering his violin in exchange for a magic book which will make him rich: he’s sold his soul, and is condemned to follow the Devil for ever. The work has been subjected to countless transformations – one London group transposed it to Iraq, to comment on the Bush-Blair invasion – yet it almost always seems to emerge band-box fresh. Designed as a music-drama with narration, it originally included dancers.

There’s no contemporary spin on the account Faust and her ensemble give of it, but there’s a narrator, alas, who seems bent on stealing the musicians’ thunder. Dominique Horwitz doesn’t just narrate, he also acts and dances the story, adding funny voices that are not funny at all. The answer should have been a giant Victorian candle-extinguisher put over his head, but no such luck. Under Faust’s leadership the band – brass, drums, and a double bass – play spiritedly.​