The Week in Reviews, Op. 515: Isabelle Faust, Inmo Yang, Yo-Yo Ma & Angelique Kidjo

September 2, 2025, 12:06 PM · In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world. Click on the highlighted links to read the entire reviews.

Violinist Isabelle Faust, conductor Andris Nelsons and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Photo by Chris Christodoulou, courtesy of the BBC.

Isabelle Faust performed the Dvorák's Violin Concerto with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Andris Nelsons at the BBC Proms.

The Guardian: "Isabelle Faust was the late replacement for Hilary Hahn in Dvorák’s Violin Concerto, and although she kept one eye on the music to be on the safe side, this was an impressively organic reading of this amiable intermingling of 19th-century Romanticism and tangy folk idioms. Sleek and silvery at the top, and with a fine line in fluid phrasing, she highlighted the music’s shadier woodland tones while bringing a lightness and lift to the sunnier episodes that pepper the rhapsodic opening movement."
The Arts Desk: "A late replacement for the injured Hilary Hahn, she made Dvorák’s Violin Concerto sound as tenderly compelling as in any reading that I’ve ever heard – and followed up with an ear-delighting encore of a mesmeric solo Fantasia in A minor by the London-born early 18th-century virtuoso, Nicola Matteis Jr."
Bach Track: "...she threw herself into full-hearted Czech romanticism: the colours of an autumn forest rather than the crystalline sunshine of a Nordic landscape. Her phrasing carried you along with the flow of the music, her accenting was deep and telling and she is so technically good that everything lined up perfectly even when she was playing at double the speed of the orchestra, which generated an excitement all of its own in the Furiant-based third movement."

Inmo Yang performed Sarasate's "Carmen Fantasy" with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Marie Jacquot at the BBC Proms.

Bach Track: "Yang then gave a dazzling, energetic performance of Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, revelling in the explosion of details with which the piece is adorned. His bouncing pizzicati ricocheted around the hall, a flight of harmonics soared into the dome and the Seguidilla taunted with its rhythmic brashness. With that, and his encore (a Kreisler scherzo), Yang signed-up a new cohort of followers, including me."

Yo-Yo Ma performed with singer Angelique Kidjo in a concert called "Sarabande Africaine."

San Francisco Classical Voice: "The concert pivoted around a gorgeous solo medley by Ma that moved seamlessly from the lamenting spiritual 'Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen' to the beatific 'Goin’ Home' from Dvorák’s 'New World' Symphony to the Sarabande theme from one of Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello...Ma inhabited each melody with open-hearted soul. Afterward, he detailed the North African origins of the sarabande dance, a central thread in the project’s loose narrative tracing African musical DNA around the globe."

Pekka Kuusisto led an eclectic program with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, featuring indigenous Scandinavian "joiks" mixed with classical selections.

Bach Track: "Kuusisto began (Pärt’s Fratres) incredibly quietly with its rapid string-crossing arpeggios. Drum and wood block introduced the bass drone, and the NCO moved together with instinctive ensemble, the violins swaying as one. Kuusisto’s solo variations sang out with clarity and improvisatory expression."

New York City Ballet Orchestra performed the music for a production of "The Butterfly Lovers" with Hong Kong Ballet at Lincoln Center.

Back Track: "The music with its rich sonorities burnished by wind and water and played live by the New York City Ballet Orchestra, with Lio Kuokman at the helm, is a triumph, conjuring ancient times as well as a bracing modernity."

Gustavo Dudamel led the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in a performance at Royal Festival Hall.

Bach Track: "They didn’t disappoint. Slick and snappy, full of rhythmic precision, this was a pulsating drive through Bernstein’s iconic score, erupting in the violence of the Rumble. But there was delicacy too, Dudamel coaxing honeyed strings in Somewhere, coyness in the Cha-cha. This is an orchestra that spreads joy....Exuberant playing and an exuberant reception."

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The Week in Reviews, Op. 515: Isabelle Faust, Inmo Yang, Yo-Yo Ma & Angelique Kidjo

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