>> Concert by German violinist Isabelle Faust and French violist Antoine Tamestit at the Prague Spring International Music Festival, May 21, 2023, Prague.
Prague – Prague Spring artist-in-residence Antoine Tamestit performed his final fourth concert at the festival in a packed Rudolfinum with the German violinist Isabelle Faustová. This year, the French violist chaired the jury of the Prague Spring International Music Competition in the field of viola. The first time he performed with fellow judges, the second time with the Czech Philharmonic and the third time with the pianist Cédric Tiberghien.
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Tamestit and Faustová chose an intimately tuned program. The Prague recital of the two artists offered three compositions by Monsieur de Sainte?Colombe, a French author from the 17th century and also a viola da gamba player, four works by the ninety-six-year-old contemporary Hungarian composer György Kurtág, and the stylistically different music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Tamestit and Faustová also performed Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola by Bohuslav Martinů. The enthused audience applauded the encore.
The listeners had the opportunity to meet two top artists in their field and at the same time hear two instruments from the workshop of the legendary Italian violinist Antonio Stradivari. Faustová plays on a violin built around 1704, which is named Sleeping Beauty because of its complex history. The instrument was bought in the 18th century by a German noble family, at whose residence they “slept” forgotten until the end of the 19th century, only to lie in a bank vault for the next 80 years. They were rediscovered and purchased for Faustová in 1995.
“I played them for half an hour and it was completely extraordinary. Some notes on all four strings – extraordinary notes – sounded absolutely heavenly to me. They touched me deeply, I had never heard anything like that before,” declared Faust.
< p>Violinist Faustová has already impressed with a concert at the Prague Spring in which she performed a set of sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach in 2019. The artist, who collaborates with the world's best orchestras and conductors, is currently the artist-in-residence of the Vienna Musikverein. “Isabelle has a refined, sensitive way of playing, a unique sound, she herself is an inspiring personality,” said Tamestit.
For Tamestit, the concert was not his first experience with the Dvořák Hall of the Rudolfinum. “It is one of my favorite concert halls. When you are on stage, it alternately gives the impression that it is extremely large and then completely intimate,” he said.
The Prague Spring program today also offered the beginning of the ZUŠ Open festival, in which in the church of St. Šimon and Judy were presented by the youngest artistic generation. In St. Agnes Monastery, the Nevermind Trio offered a historically informed interpretation of early music.
