DVORAK & TCHAIKOVSKY
HANS GRAF & LEONIDAS KAVAKOS
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (13 October 2023)
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS IN RECITAL
with ENRICO PACE, Piano
Victoria Concert Hall
Sunday (15 October 2023)
It cannot get better with two Singapore Symphony Orchestra Gala Concerts featuring celebrity performers held in close proximity. Or can it? While Latvia-born cellist Mischa Maisky (29 & 30 September) was a heart-warming ray of sunshine, Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos (13-15 October) came across like a cold fish. The cancellation of a masterclass at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and absence of post-concerto autograph sessions should have provided a clue. Then came Kavakos’ performance of Tchaikovsky’s evergreen Violin Concerto with the orchestra under the direction of Hans Graf.
If one wondered why Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick famously hated this concerto, one supposes he had heard the performance Kavakos gave on Friday evening. The usually urbane and suave fiddler appeared on the evening sullen and ill at ease. After the orchestra’s “once upon a time” introduction, his entry was clear-headed, exhibiting his famed big sound, and then it began to fray. The pristine articulation and intonation that distingushed his pre-pandemic performance of Korngold (January 2020) was conspicuously absent, in its place rough and ready playing that was intermittently breathtaking but somewhat disturbing. In a word, it was wild and wildly uneven.
All constraints of good taste and deportment, even for a passionate work such as Tchaikovsky, were cast into the winds. The development displayed unbridled passion, with the orchestra trading blow for blow, and that was very good. The ensuing cadenza however fully lived up to Hanslick’s infamous description of the violin “beaten black and blue” and providing a “stink to the ears”.
There was some respite in the Canzonetta, where wind solos accompanied his simple and unadorned song with much alacrity. But it also seemed impatient, as if girding one’s loins for the Allegro vivacissimo finale’s assault, which took off like a rocket. Here was the license to go for broke, and Kavakos went in for the kill. Again, his much-vaunted technical abilities were called to question, and if this were heard in a violin competition, he would have been eliminated early. Kavakos being Kavakos and wholly a rule to his own, he slashed a swathe through the thickets and closed with an outsized aplomb which only he could command. It wasn’t pretty, but at least he played the hell out of the work, and it was helluva exciting.
The obligatory encore from J.S.Bach’s unaccompanied Partita No.1, the Sarabande and its Double, was performed without repeats and included some ornamentations. This provided a much needed change of pace, but it was all so perfunctory. Any conscientious conservatory student might have fared better. With his work done for the day, the out of sorts Kavakos seemed more than happy to exit the stage.
The balance of this gala concert was, thankfully, far more refined. Not that refined is the best adjective to describe Antonin Dvorak, but there was much to love in his music that is not often heard. His ten Legends (Op.59) were originally conceived for piano four hands, but sound lovely in orchestral guise. The concert opened with the first four pieces, performed like a short suite, each movement resembling his better known Slavonic Dances but without the Bohemian nationalist garb. These very pleasant but varied pieces were performed with polish and good taste.
The major success came in Dvorak’s underrated Symphony No.6 in D major (Op.60). While not as famous as his final trilogy, it contained much good material which was milked for its worth, sounding like a Slavic counterpart to Brahms, who had been a very good colleague to Dvorak. Graf and the orchestra generated an outsized sonority more appropriate to Esplanade Concert Hall, not least in the fast and furious Furiant third movement, which stretched the acoustic limits of Victoria Concert Hall to the max. The Brahmsian finale swept all in its path, showing the SSO has mastered the music of Mittel-Europa very well under Graf’s masterly leadership.
Sunday afternoon’s all-French violin and piano recital by Kavakos with Italian pianist Enrico Pace was to be a true test. Compared with Friday’s Tchaikovsky, this was a much better outing. A couple more days of acclimatisation and rest might have made the difference. Opening with Ravel’s Sonate Posthume, otherwise known as his Sonata No.1 (No.2 being the familiar sonata with the famous Blues), it received a lovely reading. Its simple unadorned opening felt like a breath of fresh air, the single-movement being a langourous wallow with a couple of climaxes. Playing from a tablet, there was simply no chance of going auto-pilot or sleepwalking, and so every note seemed to count for something. Pianist Pace, no mean virtuoso himself, ensured that the ensemble was top notch throughout. Listening to his parts were a pleasure in itself.
The ensuing Poulenc Violin Sonata provided a jolt to the senses, its madcap antics contrasted with sober parts kept the duo in its toes. Negotiating its hairpin turns in moods and dynamics with stunning aplomb, there was never a dull moment. The finale’s switch from frivolity to utter seriousness, and its abrupt close reminded one and all that this was a wartime work (1943) dedicated to the memory of murdered Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
The second half of the two-hour-long recital began with Debussy’s late Violin Sonata, which echoed the myriad shifts of the Poulenc but with a more sober countenance. Its slightly more elusive idiom was laid bare with clinical precision, and if there was a performance which was less involving, it was this one. No worries, however, in the familiar Cesar Franck Sonata in A major, where Kavakos’ warmth of tone was matched by Pace’s mastery of the more-than-demanding piano part. This is one work that can be tainted with over-familiarity, but the duo kept it fresh. By now both violinist and pianist might have been exhausted, but the busy narrative would still have excited any listener new to the music. The finale’s canon provided a hint that the duo was tiring, with some dropped notes here and there but its glorious close drew an appreciative applause.
Buoyed by the warm reception, both Kavakos and Pace found new wind in their two encores, both by Ravel: the Blues movement from the Sonata in G major, reveling in its vigourous pizzicatos, and the far more gentle Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure. The latter provided the perfectly symmetrical bookend to the Faure-influenced sonata that opened the recital. Three concerts in as many days are what globetrotting artists are subjected to, and the hazards of uneven playing are in evidence. Kavakos, like the best of them, was not exempt, thus proving he is human after all.
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