Presto Recording of the Week
9th April 2021

Isabelle Faust (violin), Orchestre de Paris, Pablo Heras-Casado

Eötvös: Violin Concerto No. 3 'Alhambra'
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

More than a century after the historic scandal of its premiere at the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées, The Rite of Spring has established itself as one of the ‘musts’ of the modern orchestral repertory. And if the source of the telluric forces generated by Stravinsky lay in pagan Russia, it is beneath the arabesques of the palaces of Andalusia that Péter Eötvös found the inspiration for his third violin concerto. The work’s dedicatees, Isabelle Faust and Pablo Heras-Casado, here present its very first recording.

"Elegance and transparency aren’t adjectives you’d necessarily associate with this score, but Heras-Casado supplies both in spades, and the pay-offs are fascinating, revealing a wealth of inner detail that often gets eclipsed elsewhere. If you’re used to the red-in-tooth-and-claw energy and bottom-heavy sonorities of recordings by the likes of Igor Markevich, Leonard Bernstein and the composer himself, you might need a while to adjust to Heras-Casado’s lighter touch - but I’ll wager he won’t leave you feeling short-changed by the end." - Presto Classical, 9th April 2021.