Bartók: Rhapsodies; Brahms: Hungarian Dances (2013)

With his long hair and wild yet intellectual look, it's easy to see Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos resembles Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee and premiere-giver of Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. It's often been said that the Brahms work is not "for the violin" but "against the violin," and indeed its fascination resides in the way it bends the language of virtuoso display to Brahms' own compositional demands. It takes a superb talent to not only get through the notes but dominate the performance, and ... Read More

With his long hair and wild yet intellectual look, it's easy to see Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos resembles Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee and premiere-giver of Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77. It's often been said that the Brahms work is not "for the violin" but "against the violin," and indeed its fascination resides in the way it bends the language of virtuoso display to Brahms' own compositional demands. It takes a superb talent to not only get through the notes but dominate the performance, and Kavakos does it. In the first movement he has a nifty way of dictating the transitions from the violin, and the numerous double stops and huge arpeggios with which the violin seems to try to escape the harmonic structure of the movement are invariably executed with élan. The finale sparkles with southern Europen vigor, and the venerable Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig seems positively enlivened by the proceedings under the baton of Riccardo Chailly. If there's a complaint here, it's... Read Less