To the Bozar this evening to listen to Leonidas Kavakos’s sublime rendering of Sibelius’s violin concerto in D minor. I have blogged about Kavakos before. His is a natural talent that makes everything seem, well, easy. He was accompanied this evening by the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest under the familiar command of Valery Gergiev. The Sibelius was preceded by Henri Dutilleux’s Métaboles and succeded by Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. I am sure I was not alone in finding the Prokofiev a rather heavy digestif to follow on from Kavakos and Sibelius and I mean no disrespect to the performers nor to the composer in saying that I could have left happily after the violin concerto.
Missed this one sadly but I was there (two years to the day) when he played the Beethoven and also have a CD of him in Berg’s sublime concerto which he plays, well, sublimely. You write that he makes everything seem easy: in my experience the greatest soloists are invariably those who make playing their (fiendishly difficult) instrument seem like the most natural thing in the world.