Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos needs no introduction to classical music lovers. His recent release with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, Beethoven for Three, hit the Classical Chartz Top Ten on April 8 and remained in the Top Ten for seven weeks.
He’s also recorded with the likes of Yuja Wang, Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Mariinsky Orchestra, and other luminaries of the classical world. Along with that has come an international performing career on the world’s most prominent stages. He plays on the Willemotte Stradivarius violin of 1734.
When it comes to repertoire, he’s tackled everything from Sibelius to Ysaÿe, Mozart and Beethoven, and a great deal of Brahms. In 2022, he recorded Bach: Sei Solo, which included J.S. Bach’s complete Partitas and Sonatas for Solo Violin on the Sony Classics label. Earlier this year, he followed up with a release of Bach’s four concertos for violin with the Appolon Ensemble.
Leonidas brings the repertoire for solo violin from the acclaimed 2022 release to Koerner Hall. His performances, not surprisingly, spreads the six works out over two days, (which will be his fourth and fifth appearances at the Royal Conservatory venue).
On November 9, he’ll play the Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV. 1006, Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV. 1003, and Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV. 1005. On November 10, he’ll return with Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV. 1001, Partita No. 1 in B Minor, BWV. 1002, and Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004.
We caught up with Kavakos to talk about the repertoire.
Leonidas Kavakos: The Interview
Music came naturally to Kavakos, who grew up in a musical household.
“It was around me,” he says. “My father played the violin.” His father practised violin at home, and his grandfather played folk music on the instrument. “We had this kind of tradition at home.” His mother played piano, but young Leonidas was drawn to the violin, and decided to pursue it.
“It takes much bigger will to start a string instrument,” he believes, “because it is so impossibly difficult in the beginning.” When he began to play, he was a child of perhaps five or six years of age, with tiny, tender fingers. “It’s just a nightmare.” He points out the challenge, particularly to the youngest learners, of first managing to hold the violin properly, then use the bow with expression, along with fingering the pitches correctly.
“It’s all very unnatural. It’s actually quite painful.”
Learning to make music with it is another matter. “I think it’s much, much harder,” he says. “Therefore, it’s much, much easier to quit.” People like Leonidas, who don’t quit, move on to a larger stage. But, that wasn’t always a foregone conclusion in his case. “My father was quite tough with me,” he recalls. That meant a couple of instances where he’d quit studying the instrument for periods of time. “But something drew me back.”
At certain point, his uncertainty ended.
Bach for Solo Violin
“The main reason, why I’m doing this, is that it’s practically the best music that we have for violin,” he says. “Bach’s music is very effective, in the sense that it is very purified.”
He points out Bach’s enormous influence over the centuries, in that virtually every Western composer who’s come after him has been inspired to a certain extent by him, even to the 20th century. Kavakos feels it’s Bach’s ability to draw expression and emotion from the music through the counterpoint and other Baroque idioms that remains the key.
“His music has a […] combination of the mathematical dimension of composing, and while it is there so present, and so strongly dominating, one never thinks about it while playing the music,” he says. “That is a miracle.”
Bach’s era, it should be noted, came long before Romanticism as an everyday concept. Expression of emotion by itself was not his specific goal. “It does not mean that the people who lived in the time of Bach had no emotions,” he explains. “It was expressed in a different way.”
The mood of the music emerges via elements such as tempo, melodic intervals, and harmonies.
“It’s much more hard, and effective, if this is done in a way that is […] constructed, but in the same way, [as] when you look at beautiful architecture.. you know that everything is measured, but that’s the last thing you think about.”
He compares the architecture of a piece of music to the composition of a painting, which involves elements of balance, colour, and so on. “In the end, while they’re all there, the spectator, or in this case, the listener, does not think about it.”
That’s the lasting appeal and beauty of Bach’s work. “[It’s] the most perfect way of composing. It’s the most complete, and while it is so complex, one never feels or stays at the complexity of the music. Rather, it just opens the mind, it opens the soul.”
Bach in the 21st Century
Does Bach still have value to the 21st century world? It’s obvious.
“It is very important to share this repertoire.” While the individual solo violin works do make their way into concert programs at times, in particular, he believes it’s important that the six pieces be heard together, in their entirety. “I find it quite disappointing that this music is not played as a whole work. It should be presented more often,” he says.
The pace of the modern world is at odds with the approach needed for the music.
“We don’t want to give enough time,” he says. “It does take more time than other composers just to figure out.”
Bach’s genius when it comes to the violin lies in how he used the instrument. “The violin is an instrument that is not by its nature polyphonic,” Kavakos points out. “But Bach proves it is,” he adds.
“It is an enormous challenge for the player, but it is also an extremely rewarding experience. I feel like it changes who I am every time.” He says he can express himself, but not necessarily in the way that is of our time.
Along with the music, Kavakos likes the extreme lo-fi nature of the performance.
“Before you walk on stage, there is nothing,” he points out — no chairs or stands for other instrumentalists, no piano… “You just walk on stage, and you are alone. It brings a different dimension to our life.” It’s an experience outside of the tenor of our own time. “The time we live in is not a time of solitude or contemplation, or prayer.”
We’re afraid of being alone, of solitude and quiet. “Once we are alone, we are obliged to look into ourselves,” he says. “It’s also a proposal philosophically that is missing from our time.”
To commune through the music of Bach, including the silence before and after each piece, gives you at least some sense of what this era is lacking.
Leonidas describes coming out on stage, and while it takes a few minutes for people to settle in, even in the largest halls he’s played, there is the moment when the audience falls absolutely silent. “My senses become hyper-alert, they can receive all the details of the harmonies and the music of Bach,” he says.
That universal reaction convinces him of the enduring value of the music, and of experiencing it live.
“The leaves will die if you cut the branch,” he says. “We are also the 18th century, the 19th century — we are a continuation, we are part of humanity.”
Long live Bach.
- Find tickets and more details about each of Leonidas Kavakos’ November 9 & 10 performances at Koerner Hall [HERE].
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