Violinist Leonidas Kavakos Returns to Davies

Leonidas Kavakos (from the event page for his Great Performers recital)

Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos last visited Davies Symphony Hall at the beginning of this season, performing Igor Stravinsky’s 1931 violin concerto in D with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Last night he returned, this time as a recital soloist in the SFS Great Performers Series. He was joined at the piano by his long-time accompanist Enrico Pace.

All but one of the selections on the program were composed during the twentieth century, and they were presented in reverse chronological order. By way of contrast, the concert began with a relatively early composition by Ludwig van Beethoven, his Opus 23 (fourth) sonata in A minor, written in 1801. As regular readers know by now, all of Beethoven’s “violin sonatas” had title pages describing them as having been written “for pianoforte and violin.”

Last night’s performance was definitely presented as a partnership of equals. Furthermore, this was familiar music for the players, not only as individuals but also as partners. Kavakos and Pace joined forces to record the complete canon of Beethoven violin sonatas for Decca in an album that was released in January of 2013. The recorded account of Opus 23 delightfully captured the sharing of virtuosic duties between the two players, all in the context of the intense A minor rhetoric. (Only two of Beethoven’s ten violin sonata were written in a minor key, the other being Opus 30 in C minor.)

By way of contrast, Kavakos and Pace took an entirely different rhetorical stance for their recital opening. From the very opening exchange of the first theme, it was clear that they were far more interested in taking a playful approach. The result was a coy reminder that one can bring a playful rhetoric to a minor key without seeming ridiculous or appearing to mask sinister intentions. Instead, by the time the sonata had progressed to the final Allegro molto, theme exchange had escalated practically to the comic level of the give-and-take between Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Their approach to Beethoven thus provided an upbeat introduction to an evening that would turn darker for the remainder of the program. Opus 23 was followed by another minor-key sonata, Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 80 in F minor. This was one of those compositions that took a long time to complete. Prokofiev began it in 1938; but it was not finished until 1946, after the end of World War II. It is therefore not surprise that a somber rhetoric pervades most of the sonata, a sinister reflection on not only Adolf Hitler but also the brutal purges of Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror. It would be fair to say that this was one of the darkest compositions that Prokofiev ever wrote; and it was more than a little depressing to learn that David Oistrakh, who gave the sonata its first performance, chose to play the first and third movements at Prokofiev’s funeral. Now, over 70 years after the sonata’s completion, Kavakos and Pace clearly knew how to capture the full extent of the music’s intensity, making the intermission break a necessary source of relief.

The second half of the program coupled Béla Bartók with George Enescu, both of whom drew upon indigenous sources from their respective countries of Hungary and Romania. The Bartók offering was his first rhapsody, composed in 1928. This consists of only two movements in slow-fast alternation. However, at least half a dozen source themes unfold over the course of those two movements. Written for Joseph Szigeti, the violin part abounds with virtuosic demands. These were delivered by Kavakos with meticulous focus on detail but never suggesting that he was showing off his abilities to take on the most difficult of the passages. This is a piece that I have encountered any number of times through both recordings and recitals, but there was a freshness to Kavakos’ delivery last night that made this encounter with an “old friend” utterly delightful.

The final selection was only slightly earlier, Enescu’s Opus 25 (third) sonata in A minor, completed in 1926. Enescu added to the title “dans le caractère populaire roumain” (in Romanian folk style). Unlike Bartók, Enescu was not so much interested in the “flesh” of folk sources as he was in their “spirit.” Thus, much of the keyboard work evokes the sound of a cimbalom without necessarily trying to imitate that sound, while the violin part eases its way into a gypsy rhetoric with more of a sense of authenticity than one finds in Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane,” first performed in 1924.

However, for all the virtues of the Opus 25 sonata, Enescu had a problem with long-windedness that both Ravel and Bartók were more successful in overcoming. It almost seemed as if Enescu had more thoughts about that Romanian folk style than could be crammed into merely three sonata movements. While the music is far from “epic” in its scope, there is a prevailing sense of a stream-of-consciousness delivery that undermines the “folk rhetoric” that Enescu was striving to evoke. In that context, both Kavakos and Pace gave the music admirable treatment; but it emerged as the weakest offering of the evening.

Kavakos’ first encore selection returned the performance to the more upbeat rhetoric encountered in the Bartók rhapsody. He played an arrangement of the “Russian Dance” from Igor Stravinsky’s score for the ballet “Petrushka.” In all probability this was a transcription that Samuel Dushkin made with Stravinsky’s approval, and it is likely that Stravinsky would have approved of the spirit that Kavakos brought to playing that transcription.

Neither of the two encores were announced. The second did not quickly register with me. However, it left the impression that Kavakos wanted to conclude with one last nod to Enescu. After doing some post-concert perusing, I came to the conjecture that he had played Enescu’s brief “Andante malinconico” for violin and piano. However, I offer that conjecture with full knowledge that it is open to challenge! [added 1/29, 7:50 a.m.: My conjecture was mistaken. The composer was Hungarian rather than Romanian. The selection was Ernst von Dohnányi's Opus 32, “Rurulia hungarica!”]