Leonidas Kavakos

Artist ∙ Classical

Greek violinist and conductor Leonidas Kavakos first came to international attention with a 1990 recording of the technically daunting original version of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto Op. 47 (1904). Born in Athens in 1967, Kavakos has a distinctive “open” sound that taps into the violin’s natural resonances, microcosmic tonal shadings, sleight-of hand articulation, and quicksilver technique, evidencing an individualist prepared not to merely follow established norms. Yet it was a 1999 disc featuring Ysaÿe’s six Sonatas for Solo Violin Op. 27 (1923) that fully established Kavakos’ interpretive credentials: the inquisitive exploration of lower dynamic levels, exquisitely subtle use of vibrato (often reduced to a whispered stillness), and fearlessness in shining a light on the darker recesses of Ysaÿe’s creative imagination.

September 14, 2017 at PDT
Brahms: The Piano Trios
Each member of this very classy group is a magnificent Brahms player. Put them together and real magic happens. Brahms’ three trios span his creative life—No. 1 was completed when he was 20 (later revised, as played here), and Nos. 2 and 3 were composed while he was in his late 40s and early 50s. This is chamber music-making of a superior order: flexible, full of insight, joyful, and captivating in its freshness. Kavakos, the youngest of the trio, partners the two long-time friends with an innate and heartwarming sense of style.
12 Tracks
November 10, 2022 at PST
Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" and Op. 1 No. 3
Violinist Leonidas Kavakos, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Emanuel Ax present the second of their Beethoven for Three albums, a series exploring piano trio arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies. Together, they bring a supreme warmth and wisdom to pianist Shai Wosner’s arrangement of Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”. In the “Scene by the brook,” Ax’s piano burbles with al fresco satisfaction, while “The storm” is convincingly turbulent. The finale’s “Thanksgiving after the storm” is suffused with a tender intimacy, at least equaling the blissed-out pantheistic vision of Beethoven’s orchestral original. A seamlessly collaborative performance of Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 3 adds further kudos to this master class in chamber music-making.
10 Tracks
March 3, 2022 at PST
Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5
At first glance, a recording of Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 arranged for piano trio seems a little unusual—even if they’re performed by the powerhouse trio of violinist Leonidas Kavakos, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Emanuel Ax. After all, these works were originally scored for the massive forces of a full symphony orchestra. But playing them in chamber form is less unexpected than it might appear. “As soon as a symphony was written, there would be all these different transcriptions of it for different instruments,” Yo-Yo Ma tells Apple Music. “The paradox,” adds Ax, “is that the orchestra version in Beethoven’s lifetime would have been the unusual event. The usual event would have been those piano four-hands versions, or a trio or quartet arrangement. So, in fact, this chamber version was probably the standard one as opposed to what we’re used to today.”

For this recording, the trio used an existing arrangement of Symphony No. 2 by Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries. But for the Fifth, they opted to commission an entirely new arrangement from British composer Colin Matthews. Matthews, Ax explains, took inspiration from Liszt’s own piano solo arrangement of Beethoven’s Fifth. “I could certainly tell where he had done that, because those were the parts I couldn’t play!” he laughs. “Beethoven used the orchestra in a more remarkable way than probably any composer ever, but Colin has managed to capture it all so wonderfully well.”

Symphony No. 5 has extraordinary energy and revolutionary zeal, which you’d think might be difficult to replicate with just three players. “The one thing I couldn’t wait for was to explore its intensity and revolutionary spirit, and I never felt that we were downscaling it,” says Kavakos. “In fact, I have to play much more than I would play as a violinist in the orchestra. Because the material is distributed only to three people, we get to play practically every great tune that there is in that piece.” Ax agrees and suggests that these trio arrangements bring even more musical detail to the surface. “One of the things that I think is so great about three of us doing this is the sheer amount of energy that has to happen,” he explains. “It takes a lot of physical effort! But as a result, you get more clarity and percussiveness than you would probably get from an entire string section.”

Ma, Ax, and Kavakos aren’t stopping here, either. As this album was released, they were already rehearsing an arrangement by pianist Shai Wosner of the Pastoral Symphony (Beethoven’s Sixth), in which they’re finding modern resonance. “We’re living in this period of climate change,” says Ma. “It’s going to be both moving and joyful to play a piece of music in which, a couple of hundred years ago, Beethoven was relishing his communion with nature and was expressing it in extraordinary music.”
8 Tracks
March 14, 2024 at PDT
Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 "Archduke"
Violinist Leonidas Kavakos, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and pianist Emanuel Ax continue on their thrilling Beethoven for Three journey through all the composer’s nine symphonies, this time showcasing No. 4.

Deftly arranged here by pianist Shai Wosner, Symphony No. 4 is perhaps the least appreciated and known of all Beethoven’s nine symphonies, but in this trio’s hands it rightly emerges as one of the composer’s finest creations. In its trimmed-down scoring the anticipatory drama of the opening “Adagio” feels enhanced, while its explosion into the “Allegro vivace” is a thing of unbounded joy.

The “Adagio” second movement feels epic, its details beautifully spotlit. There’s a muscular richness to the playing that goes a long way to mimicking the original scoring’s breadth and depth. There are, however, so many glorious subtleties, as if Beethoven’s workings were laid out on a table for all to see. This is also true in the rambunctious “Allegro vivace” third movement and “Allegro ma non troppo” finale where the music dances with unstoppable energy. This feels as much like a new chamber work as a fresh reading of a colossal masterpiece.

Arranging large-scale works for small forces, whether piano duet, organ or, in this case, piano trio, is part of a long tradition. These scaled-down versions weren’t usually produced solely for the novelty—back in the 19th century and early 20th, they served a social purpose. Before the advent of recordings, audiences could only hear an orchestral performance at a live concert. Most neither had the means nor lived close enough to a venue large enough to hear great symphonic works in their original scorings. But experiencing them in chamber form was cost effective and, in the right arrangement, just as exciting.

These arrangements also opened the doors for home performances, as Yo-Yo Ma explains to Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe: “My good friend Manny Ax says that if you were interested in Beethoven’s symphonies in the 1800s up until the recording industry started happening, you might hear it twice in your life. The only other way you could hear it is if you played it yourself in a version for two pianos or for three people.”

Ma likens the advent of recording technology to the printing press. “Before the printing press,” he says, “that’s how you got the Bible. Someone who could read would read from it, but you didn’t have your own copy. If you want a Beethoven Symphony cover, you’re not going to hear it any other place. You’ve got to do it yourself. That’s before Edison came along.”

The album also includes a performance of Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio from 1811, a work of sweeping grandeur, poise, and humor that proves the perfect vehicle for these finest of musicians. There’s even almost a sense that the piece could have started life as a symphony, such is the emotional strength of their account.
8 Tracks
March 28, 2024 at PDT
Bach: Violin Concertos
J.S. Bach spent most of his life in the service of the Lutheran church, composing weekly, and at speed, vast amounts of organ music and cantatas. But between the years of 1717 and 1723, the German Baroque composer was employed at the court of Prince Leopold in Cöthen. Freed from liturgical pressures, he conceived the majority of his greatest secular works, including the Brandenburg Concertos, Orchestral Suites, music for solo violin and cello, a number of violin concertos, and a good deal more.

Ostensibly, there are two concertos for solo violin and orchestra. One in A Minor, the other in E Minor. But there is little doubt, now, that Bach later rearranged the solo parts of a number of concertos for harpsichord (and changed the keys). Today, we can add two more violin concertos to the catalog: G Minor and D Minor. “I think that the D Minor is the one that was a revelation for me when I first listened to a recording as a student,” Leonidas Kavakos tells Apple Music Classical. “It was one of the most powerful musical experiences I’ve had. It’s like a grand concerto. He almost never wrote anything like it before or after.”

Just a year or so after his album of Bach’s complete music for solo violin, the Greek violinist has recorded here the “complete set” of four solo violin concertos with a small, one-to-part handpicked group, The Apollon Ensemble. There’s a vibrancy to their recording, partly due to the size of the ensemble, but also thanks to the use of modern steel strings. Kavakos and Apollon hover between modernity and a period-instrument approach, crafting an intimate atmosphere where soloist and ensemble are at one. A blissful union of old and new.

If those modern steel strings bring vibrancy, they also add richness. And the use of modern bows helps Kavakos and his ensemble reach greater levels of expression. “The quality of the sound of the modern bow does not compare,” he says. “Everybody speaks about articulation with a Baroque bow, but nobody speaks about, for instance, the really restricted dynamics. With a Baroque bow, you can only play so strongly. There is no way to play more than a certain amount of volume.”

But this is no big-boned Bach. Kavakos’ approach to this music comes on the back of a realization in his youth that the German composer’s music had to be approached differently. “My generation emerged from an environment of huge personalities in the violin world,” says Kavakos. “And that dictated a way of playing Bach that was absolutely wrong for me. In the solo works, the way the polyphony was pronounced and served was wrong from a technical point of view, as well as the music’s expressivity.” It took him 10 years to find his own pathway. “I am much more at ease with this music because I now know there is a way to bring a modern and new approach to it,” he says.

“I feel that the concertos have yet to be explored in a way that offers a different experience, not just acoustically, but also from a musical point of view,” Kavakos continues. “And that's why I created this ensemble. I thought, I want to have an ensemble that is not going to sound like an orchestra. I want something that’s going to be very personal, but also very present. And, because it’s just one person per voice, very flexible and independent.”

In contrast to the vast spaces of Bach’s former places of work, such as the Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen, the court at Cöthen offered smaller rooms and less reverberant acoustics. Bach’s music was therefore undoubtedly scored for smaller ensembles. “There are many times in the concertos when the orchestra repeats motifs that are in the solo part,” he explains. “If you look at the third movement of the Violin Concerto in G Minor, the soloist and the first violin part is like a double concerto. And so, while there is a personal solo voice, how can we depersonalize the other voices that are equally important?”

A smaller ensemble allows the harpsichord to be heard much more clearly, too. Harpsichordist Iason Marmaras adds improvisatory elements that, Kavakos says, inspired the whole ensemble. “Iason does all kinds of things that bring to the music this unbelievable richness and this freedom,” says Kavakos. “It was almost as if I didn’t need the orchestra!” he adds, with a laugh.

In the months leading up to this album, Kavakos has lived and breathed these concertos. At journey’s end, it’s the slow movements that, for him, rise far above. “If Bach only wrote these movements, they would be enough to define him as the greatest of all. Each and every one of these slow movements are just out of this world,” he says. “They're totally different, not only in key, of course, but also in character, in architecture, in concept, in everything. But each of them takes you somewhere. It's like you are in heaven, like you are somewhere outside this world.”
13 Tracks
February 3, 2022 at PST
Bach: Sei Solo
Bach’s music for solo violin is widely considered to be the finest ever written for the instrument. Completed more than 300 years ago, in 1720, it presents such technical, musical, and emotional challenges that even today’s greatest players spend a lifetime perfecting it—including Greek virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos. “My highest dream was always to record the solo sonatas and partitas,” he tells Apple Music, a dream he has finally realized on Sei Solo. “Not from a career point of view, but simply to be able to arrive at the point where I felt could bring something new to it.”

Kavakos still remembers the first time he fully appreciated the power of Bach’s solo violin music: In his twenties, he was given a recording of sonatas and partitas by the legendary Baroque violinist Sigiswald Kuijken. “I realized that I wasn’t focusing on the playing, but on the music. This wasn’t playing in the way I was taught—it was violin playing in the service of a style, of a time in history.” The experience affected him so much that he stopped playing Bach in public for more than ten years, spending time practicing it and experimenting with authentic gut strings and different bows. “I needed to absorb everything and create an interpretation that I could be happy with,” he adds. This recording, then, is both a document of a remarkable musical journey and the story of a personal reawakening. Read on as Kavakos talks us through it in-depth.

Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006
“I wanted to start with the Third Partita because the opening movement was later transcribed by Bach for the opening sinfonia of ‘Cantata BWV 29.’ The cantata’s title ‘Wir danken dir, Gott’ [‘We thank you, God’] is something we say not only when we pray, but also in everyday life. For me, this was a reason to begin the recording with this partita. But it’s also a good place to start because all of its movements are of a lighter character. The prelude is incredible. The way the music moves through the movement—with its harmonies and changes of mood—is, for me, the highlight of the whole partita.”

Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005
“The three sonatas are more serious works—each has four movements, including a prelude and a fugue. This prelude has a very repetitive motif that’s relaxing to listen to because it is so mathematical and so perfectly proportioned that it cleans all the emotions. With Bach, you always feel that everything is in the right place. Everything is in harmony. Lasting over 10 minutes, the fugue is the longest Bach wrote and is one of his most incredible. It has the rhythm of a gavotte, and the challenge is to maintain that dancing, swinging feel throughout, even when the fugue itself is traveling in different directions, constantly repeating and reinventing itself. I sometimes feel as though this fugue is like a journey for the soul. Next comes the largo, the kind of piece you can close your eyes and relax to, before the very virtuosic last movement.”

Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003
“The first movement is like a narration, as if it’s telling a story, and it’s full of divine beauty. The fugue that follows is, again, very long and dramatic, but it ends in the key of A major, which feels cleansing, as if looking to a brighter future. But what I feel is really amazing about this sonata is the third movement, which has a continuous, repetitive bassline, which gives the effect of two voices sounding together. It’s one of my favorite encores. It’s also in C major, which, because there are no sharps or flats, feels very pure. And because the final movement returns to A minor, it feels even more cleansing.”

Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001
“The opening adagio is just so beautiful. Again, it’s like a narrative, and I try to make it sound like an improvisation. The fugue here is the shortest in all the sonatas, but it’s also the fastest. The theme constantly moves from one layer to another while the bass tries to keep up, like a shadow. The siciliana is in a major key, which adds a feeling of joy to the whole sonata, while the final movement creates an illusion of chords through a rapid series of notes. What I find amazing about Bach’s music is how he meanders from the home key—he takes his listeners to incredible places.”

Violin Partita No. 1 in B Minor, BWV 1002
“The partitas are generally of a lighter character, consisting of many movements. But this partita has a remarkable structure, in that each movement has a ‘double,’ which means that each movement has a variation—a brother or a sister, if you like. So, the allemanda, for instance, is very ceremonial, very strong, but its double is like an echo or a reflection. In a similar way, the sarabande feels quite stately, but its double is almost like composed silence. Each double presents the ideas of its partner movement in such different ways, challenging it in dimensions, volume, and structure. And so, I would recommend always listening to each movement and its double as a single piece.”

Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
“The D Minor Partita is composed with the same structure as the other partitas, with an allemanda, a corrente, a sarabande, and a gigue, which is a fantastic movement. Of these movements, I really love the sarabande, and violinists often play it as an encore. But then we come to the final movement, ‘Ciaccona.’ It’s a unique piece in all of Bach’s works, a series of variations that has never been equaled. When I say it has a religious quality, I don’t mean in the sense of the church, but a belief in something supernatural, something we can only try to approach. It’s in three sections: D minor, D major, and D minor again. The opening D minor section is like reality, before the middle section, which represents the dream. Finally, as the chaconne moves back to D minor, we’re faced with having to reach that dream. As we began with ‘We thank you, God,’ we end with the Trinity.”
31 Tracks
April 11, 2024 at PDT
Brahms, Nielsen, Bach
Tickets to the Vienna Philharmonic’s subscription concerts are highly prized, with a waiting list stretching into years. Here, however, you can enjoy a front-row seat for this concert from March 2023, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. The program features two contrasting works: Brahms’ ultra-Romantic Violin Concerto and Nielsen’s anguished, modernist Symphony No. 5, composed in the aftermath of the First World War, a piece new to the Vienna Philharmonic’s repertoire.

First, however, Brahms, and a concerto that has become one of the most famous of all. Soloist Leonidas Kavakos brings virtuosity, passion, and sweetness in equal measure to the opening two movements. And he revels in the Eastern European soul of the final “Allegro giocoso,” accentuating its snapping rhythms and digging deep into its boisterous, playful double stopping.

The Concerto’s stirring final bars bring into sharp relief the sparse textures of the opening of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5. It’s a work that wanders, searches, contemplates, before erupting into a tense battle between good and evil, between orchestra and side drum. It’s one of the most striking and brutal moments in all of Nielsen’s music, and is here brought brilliantly to life by Blomstedt, a veteran of this work. The ensuing “Adagio non troppo” harks back to burnished Brucknerian majesty, while the third and final movement introduces flashes of angular Mahlerian brass, frenetic energy, and a thunderous coda that releases the tension in a final, golden chord of E-flat Major.
7 Tracks
July 30, 2020 at PDT
Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70, TH 118 (Live from Verbier Festival / 2013)
Switzerland’s Verbier Festival is an Alpine idyll hosting the world’s most celebrated and starry musicians, and this album offers the chance to relive a terrific performance from 2013. Tchaikovsky’s four-movement Souvenir de Florence, a love letter to the Italian city from 1890, may be best-known in its string orchestra arrangement, but the original sextet version is a more fiery, passionate experience. The six A-listers here elicit every ounce of the score’s emotion, from the agitated opening waltz to the heartfelt, aria-like adagio and the final two movements, brimming with irrepressible Russian spirit.
4 Tracks
December 31, 2013 at PST
Brahms: The Violin Sonatas
12 Tracks
October 17, 2019 at PDT
Beethoven: Violin Concerto, Op. 61, Septet, Op. 20 & Variations on Folk Songs, Op. 105 & 107
An unusual pairing that finds Kavakos in top form and in fine company.
14 Tracks
November 30, 1999 at PST
Ysaÿe: 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27
15 Tracks
January 31, 1991 at PST
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47 (Original Version and Final Version)
6 Tracks
August 25, 2022 at PDT
Trifonov Plays Chamber Music (Live)
6 Tracks
December 31, 2011 at PST
Beethoven: The Complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano
33 Tracks
February 20, 2005 at PST
Bach & Stravinsky - Works for Violin
23 Tracks
December 31, 2012 at PST
Brahms: Violin Concerto & Hungarian Dances - Bartók: Rhapsodies
11 Tracks
December 31, 1991 at PST
Leonidas Kavakos - Violin Recital
12 Tracks
December 31, 1993 at PST
Paganini: 24 Caprices
24 Tracks
May 7, 2006 at PDT
Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1-5, Symphony No. 39
19 Tracks
August 19, 2009 at PDT
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Violin Conderto & Piano Trios
11 Tracks
October 12, 2003 at PDT
Maurice Ravel: Sonate Posthume, Tzigane - George Enescu: Impressions d'enfance, Sonata No. 3
6 Tracks
March 27, 2004 at PST
Kreisler: Music for Violin and Piano
18 Tracks
July 19, 1990 at PDT
Leonidas Kavakos Debut Recording
10 Tracks
August 25, 1994 at PDT
Sibelius : Miniature Masterpieces
20 Tracks
March 31, 2001 at PST
Hindemith: Violin Concerto, Concert Music for Strings and Brass & Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
9 Tracks

Leonidas Kavakos

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