People who heard Isabelle Faust perform at Dominion-Chalmers Church in Ottawa during the 2010 ChamberFest will need little urging to check out some of her many recordings. Are these familiar Brahms pieces a good place to start?

That depends. If you don't already have the Violin Concerto in your collection, you won't go wrong in selecting this one. If you like having more than one version, Faust's compares with the very best. The special qualities of her sound are partly masked in orchestral recordings, but they are still there.

There are few things in music that matter more to me than clarity, and this is perhaps the most transparent account of the concerto that I've heard. Add to that the precision of Faust's playing and her knack for making every phrase special and you have a real winner.

Under the baton of Daniel Harding, the smallish Mahler Chamber Orchestra provides exemplary balance and conceptual lucidity.

As for the String Sextet, the performance is lovely, but if you are more interested in it than the concerto, you would do better with the Raphael Ensemble's magisterial recording of it and the other Brahms Sextet, the Opus 18 on Hyperion.