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The artistry of Leonidas Kavakos' violin playing: Power, grace and a bit of jazz
Leonidas Kavakos walks onstage, a presence unlike any other superstar violinist. Over 6 feet tall, fashionably dressed in black and sporting a wry smile, he nevertheless looks a bit awkward, carrying a Stradivarius that looks like a toy in his hands.
But there’s nothing awkward about it once he launches into the music, handling the violin as deftly and gracefully as Roger Federer wielded a tennis racket. And what music he makes.
Born in Athens in 1967, Kavakos has amassed an enviable recording career, mostly of the Three Bs — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — and the Two Ms — Mozart and Mendelssohn, displaying as sure a hand with chamber music as orchestral.
We’ll get a taste of those chamber chops when he and another classical all-star, pianist Daniil Trifonov get together at Symphony Hall March 5 for a Celebrity Series of Boston concert, featuring 19th and 20th-century classics, the same program they were going to play at Tanglewood last summer before Kavakos injured his shoulder. There's Beethoven and Brahms, but Kavakos is trading in Bach for another killer B — Bartók. Poulenc gets with the program as well.
Kavakos and Trifonov, who's also on the July 5 opening night schedule, are old chamber mates. Here they are performing a bit of Fritz Kreisler six years ago:
There have been musicians appearing at Tanglewood who have determined when to plan a summer visit to the Berkshires. Leonard Bernstein for sure. Yo-Yo Ma for another.
Kavakos, though not a household name, has become that guy for me. I first saw him in the Berkshires two years ago appearing with Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax and violist Antoine Tamestit in a sizzling performance of Dvořák’s second piano quartet.
He has also succeeded Isaac Stern as part of the Ma-Ax trio supergroup, performing and recording superb transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies as well as Brahms trios. They performed their latest CD in the “Beethoven for Three” series — Symphony No. 4 and the “Archduke” Trio — in 2023 at Tanglewood, which isn’t the most historic place they’ve played. That would be the Parthenon.
The trio plus Tamestit return to Tanglewood this coming season in an all-Beethoven program that includes Beethoven's Trio No. 4 and transcriptions of the "Eroica" and the "Leonore Overture No. 3." Expect the Aug. 3 house to be brought down. Kavakos also appears the night before with Elim Chan and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Erich Wolfgang Korngold's violin concerto.
Here's an example of the trio's extraordinary chemistry, artistry and power, playing the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, shot at Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood.
Kavakos' concert with Trifonov for the Celebrity Series program features four pieces for violin and piano — Beethoven's Fourth and Brahms' First sonatas alongside the 20th century modernists — Bartók's Rhapsody No. 1 and Poulenc’s high-energy Sonata for Violin and Piano, which would seem to be right up Kavakos’s alley.
He's recorded the other three, all first-class performances. Beethoven is a playful, flirtatious dialogue with his under-known collaborator Enrico Pace.
Here are Kavakos and Yuja Wang playing the Brahms Sonata No. 1 he’ll be playing with Trifonov. The whole CD with Wang is a wonderfully warm voyage through Brahms' music for violin and piano. Kavakos and pianist Peter Nagy get playfully, perceptively close to Bartók's folk music roots with the two rhapsodies and a selection of Hungarian Dances paired with Brahms' violin concerto on CD.
What is it about Kavakos that’s so intriguing? To torture the Federer analogy there’s a mix of strength and grace that looks effortless, a bit like the late jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, barely moving a muscle and still getting gorgeous sound out of the violin.
And while the notes are the notes in classical music, there’s a jazz-like sense of improvisation you can see in the Beethoven excerpt or hear in Bartók's rhapsodies. It’s not accidental. He grew up listening to his grandfather and father play folk music in Athens. He told Laurie Niles on Violin.com: “You have to play in such a way that the people are in a great mood the whole time — ready to dance and ready to celebrate — so that the good spirit doesn't get lost somewhere. This approach is a fantastic one which, for us in classical music, is something that we can appreciate and learn from.”
In one concert he had a Hungarian folk band play the folk music that Bartók based some of his music on and then Kavakos performed what Bartók did to that music.
Whatever he performs and wherever — on disc or in person — Kavakos combines a mixture of sweetness (without a hint of the saccharine) and strength (without a hint of bombast). Listen to the heartbreaking beauty of the adagio from Brahms' violin concerto beginning at the 26:22 mark and then to the seamless transition from beauty to muscle at the 32:30 mark.
He now records for Sony where his two Bach CDs are as lilting and melodic as Johann Sebastian gets, without the pedantry and solemnity that can weigh down other artists’ performances.
I’d love to see Kavakos perform more contemporary music. The superb South Korean composer Unsuk Chin agreed to write a second violin concerto only if Kavakos would perform it, which he did to considerable acclaim with the BSO in 2021. Unfortunately no recording has followed.
Kavakos is also forging a conducting career; he’s conducted at Symphony Hall among other places. He’s also the conductor for the Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mozart concertos on Sony, as well as for a spirited 39th symphony on the Mozart CD. All are highly recommended. But don’t let the good conducting reviews go to your head, Mr. K. Don’t ever stop fiddling around.
