Bach: Violin Concertos Leonidas Kavakos

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R:
• 1 Bach: Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R: Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R/I. Allegro 07:03
• 2 Bach: Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R: II. Adagio 06:21
• 3 Bach: Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R: III. Allegro 07:26
• Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041:
• 4 Bach: Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041: I. Allegro 03:26
• 5 Bach: Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041: II. Andante 06:08
• 6 Bach: Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041: III. Allegro assai 03:22
• Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042:
• 7 Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042: I. Allegro 07:15
• 8 Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042/II. Adagio 06:02
• 9 Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042: III. Allegro assai 02:31
• Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056:
• 10 Bach: Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056: I. Allegro 03:27
• 11 Bach: Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056: II. Largo 03:09
• 12 Bach: Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056: III. Presto 03:23
• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068:
• 13 Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: II. Air 04:53
• Total Runtime 01:04:26

Info for Bach: Violin Concertos

A violin superstar brings perhaps too much personality to the Baroque

For his latest release on Sony Classical, to be released on March 29, 2024, violinist Leonidas Kavakos goes back to Bach - varied and vivid orchestral works from the first half of the 18th century in which the composer combined the best of German and Italian instrumental styles. An exclusive Sony Classical artist, Kavakos is one of the world’s most respected violinists. He continues to be a guest of the great concert halls and orchestras of the world as both violinist and conductor.

Leonidas Kavakos’s accounts of these provoke a mixture of positive and negative reactions. His technical athleticism, lightly articulated bow-strokes, clinical precision, pliancy and rhetorical spontaneity acknowledge period-performance practices to good effect; and he adds drama a-plenty, especially in the darkly intense opening Allegro of the D minor and his numerous rhetorical flourishes in the Presto of the G minor. His communication and musical affinity with the one-per-part Apollon Ensemble also ensure tautly controlled performances, transparent textures and a rare unanimity of sound and purpose, cleanly captured by Sony’s engineers.

“I doubt if there is more than handful of violinists alive who can match Kavakos in the tonal variety, accuracy and speed of his harmonics, or in the deft alternation of bowing and left-hand pizzicato." — Gramophone

Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Apollon Ensemble

Leonidas Kavakos
is recognised across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, acclaimed for his matchless technique, his captivating artistry and his superb musicianship as well as for the integrity of his playing. He works with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors and plays as recitalist in the world’s premier recital halls and festivals. He is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical.

The three important mentors in his life have been Stelios Kafantaris, Josef Gingold, and Ferenc Rados, with whom he still works. By the age of 21, Leonidas Kavakos had already won three major competitions: the Sibelius Competition in 1985, and the Paganini and Naumburg competitions in 1988. This success led to him recording the original Sibelius Violin Concerto (1903/4), the first recording of this work in history, and which won Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award in 1991.

Kavakos is now an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classics. His latest recording, to be released worldwide in October 2019 in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, is the Beethoven Concerto which he conducted and played with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, coupled with the Beethoven Septet played with members of the orchestra. In the anniversary year, Kavakos will both play and play/conduct the Beethoven concerto with orchestras across Europe and the USA. He will also play the complete Beethoven Sonata cycle in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Milan and Rome, and a number of single Beethoven recitals in various cities including London’s Wigmore Hall, Barcelona, Parma and Copenhagen.

In 2007, for his recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Enrico Pace, Kavakos was named Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the year. In 2014, Kavakos was awarded Gramophone Artist of the Year.

Further accolades came in 2017 when Kavakos was awarded the prestigious Leonie Sonning Prize – Denmark’s highest musical honour, given annually to an internationally recognised composer, condcutor, instrumentalist or singer. Previous winners include Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel, Benjamin Britten, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Rubenstein and Dmitri Shostakovich.

August 2019 was a full and rewarding month: after the Verbier Festival where he appeared in recital with Evgent Kissin and conducted the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in a programme in which he played Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Antoine Tamestit, he joined YoYo Ma and Emanuel Ax at the Tanglewood Music Festival for a programme of Beethoven Piano trios, in a duo recital with Ax of Beethoven Sonatas, and in an orchestral concert with the Boston Symphony in which he played and conducted Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Dvorak Symphony No. 7.

Kavakos was also invited as “Artiste Etoile” at the Lucerne Festival where he appeared with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic with Andes Orozco Estrada, and in recital with Yuja Wang.

In the 2019/20 season, in addition to concerts with major orchestras in Europe and the United States, Leonidas Kavakos will one again join YoYo Ma and Emanuel Ax for three programmes in Carngie Hall comprising Beethoven trios and sonatas. He will undertake two Asian tours, first as soloist with the Singapore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic and in recital in the NCPA Beijing, and then in the spring he performs with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, prior to playing Beethoven Sonata Cycles in Shanghai and Guangzhou with Enrico Pace.

In recent year, Leonidas Kavakos has succeeded in building a strong profile as a conductor and has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gürzenich Orchester, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. In the forthcoming season he will return to two orchestra where he has developed close ties as both violinist and condcutor: L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. This season he also play/conducts theCzech Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

Born and brought up in a musical family in Athens, Kavakos curates an annual violin and chamber-music masterclass in Athens, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world and reflects his deep commitment to the handing on of musical knowledge and traditions. Part of this tradition is the art of violin and bow-making, which Kavakos regards as a great mystery and to this day, an undisclosed secret. He plays the ‘Willemotte’ Stradivarius violin of 1734 and owns modern violins made by F. Leonhard, S.P. Greiner, E. Haahti and D. Bagué.

Booklet for Bach: Violin Concertos