Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" and Op. 1, No. 3 Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, Yo-Yo Ma

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale":
• 1 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": I. Allegro ma non troppo, "Awakening of cheerful feelings on arriving in the countryside" 11:51
• 2 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": II. Andante molto mosso, "Scene by the brook" 11:57
• 3 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": III. Allegro, "Joyful gathering of countryfolk" 04:51
• 4 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": IV. Allegro, "The storm" 03:42
• 5 Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": V. Allegretto, "Shepherd's song. Thanksgiving after the storm" 09:41
• Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3:
• 6 Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3: I. Allegro con brio 10:01
• 7 Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3: II. Andante cantabile con variazioni 07:38
• 8 Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3: III. Menuetto. Quasi allegro 03:39
• 9 Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3: IV. Finale. Prestissimo 08:34
• Total Runtime 01:11:54

Info for Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" and Op. 1, No. 3

Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma's new recording, Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale” and Op. 1, No. 3, is set for release on November 11, 2022 on Sony Classical.

Like the first Beethoven for Three release—Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5—this recording challenges the traditional boundary between chamber and orchestral repertoire to offer the listener two very different sides of the composer using the same three voices. In the C Minor piano trio, we hear Beethoven’s brilliant exploration of three instruments’ essential expressive capabilities; in the “Pastorale,” lovingly reimagined for trio by Shai Wosner, the piano, violin, and cello transcend their own identities to represent the endless creativity of the natural world, becoming, in turn, bird, brook, and storm. Like the first Beethoven for Three release, this recording continues a musical conversation between three friends while offering audiences a rare and intimate look at Beethoven's evolution as a composer.

The Beethoven for Three series features three artists in pursuit of the essential elements of Beethoven's musical language, presenting Beethoven's most iconic symphonies in intimate arrangements that maintain the power and immediacy of his orchestral works. By performing the symphonies on three instruments alongside the composer’s canonical piano trios, the artists present a wealth of insight about both Beethoven and his earliest audiences.

“It used to be completely normal that the first release of a symphony would not be the full score,” says Ax, “because to hear an orchestra was a very rare event. You wouldn't get that music until dozens of years later; you would get the arrangement for one piano, four hands, or trio, or quartet, and that’s how you got to know the music. So we're going back to the roots.”

Beyond its historical precedent, Beethoven for Three also presents a new opportunity for performers and listeners to reappraise the boundaries between musical genres, and reenvision how musicians can collaborate freely and creatively.

“We all feel that being able to participate in a symphony is such a wonderful thing to do,” says Ma. “One of the things that has separated people since recording began is the categories that we put people in, in which chamber musicians, orchestra players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all viewed as separate categories with no overlap. That siloed thinking discourages actual creativity and collaboration between people. And so we feel that one of the things that is really important to do today is to actually go back to the first principles of music, the simple interaction between friends who want to do something together.”

The trio's newest recording contrasts Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale” — appearing in a specially commissioned arrangement by Shai Wosner — with his Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3. Heard together, these two pieces showcase vastly different sides of Beethoven through the shared language of the piano trio. Written in Vienna when Beethoven was 25 years old, with his first symphony still five years away, Op. 1 No. 3 captures his transition from a virtuoso pianist to a composer in his own right. In contrast, Symphony No. 6 features Beethoven in his prime, making space for something more lyrical and cinematic between the obsessiveness of Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7.

“Like the fifth and seventh symphonies, the sixth symphony is made up of small motifs which, through repetition, become longer lines of music, a form of minimalism, in a way,” says Kavakos. “But unlike the fifth and seventh symphonies — which are not only physically challenging, but musically and psychologically, with an almost obsessive repetition of motifs — the sixth symphony uses this repetition to create a lighter, more elevated mood. It just goes on forever, but you never get tired of it.”

Beethoven for Three has its origins in the 2021 Tanglewood Music Festival, where Ax, Kavakos, and Ma first played Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in trio format. The performance was an instant success, and the first release in the series, Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, was recorded soon after. Gramophone highlighted their recording of Symphony No. 5, noting that “the performance by Ax, Kavakos and Ma is not just aptly intense — the opening Allegro con brio is as involving as any orchestral performance I've heard — but also incredibly sensitive to the music’s crucial juxtapositions, as one can hear in the Andante con moto, where they so deftly balance delicacy and heroic swagger — note the vulnerability in Kavakos's tone at 1'42" — in a way that I find deeply moving.”

Ax, Kavakos, and Ma first performed together as a trio at the 2014 Tanglewood Festival, playing a program of Brahms's piano trios. Their first recording effort, Brahms: The Piano Trios, was released in 2017 to universal critical acclaim; Gramophone observed that “These performances get straight to the heart of Brahms’s music, relishing its pull of opposites,” while Limelight noted “There’s no doubting the ardour that these players bring to the music, which is delivered with an eye to creating broad, sweeping phrases…there are plenty of opportunities to swoon along the way.”

Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Emanuel Ax, piano

Emanuel Ax
Born to Polish parents what is today Lyvov, Ukrain, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.

In fall 2021 he resumed a post-COVID touring schedule that included concerts with the Colorado, Pacific, Cincinnati and Houston symphonies as well as Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras. 2022/23 will include a tour with Itzhak Perlman “and Friends” and a continuation of the “Beethoven For 3” touring and recording project with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, this year on the west coast.

In recital he can be heard in Palm Beach, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, Las Vegas and New York and with orchestras in Atlanta, Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Naples, Portland OR, Toronto, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Touring in Europe in the fall and spring includes concerts in Germany, UK, Switzerland and France.

Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).

Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University.

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.

Yo-Yo Ma
multi-faceted career is testament to his enduring belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works from the cello repertoire, collaborating with communities and institutions to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.

In 2018, Yo-Yo set out to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello in one sitting in 36 locations around the world that encompass our cultural heritage, our current creativity, and the challenges of peace and understanding that will shape our future. And last year, he began a new journey to explore the many ways in which culture connects us to the natural world. Over the next several years, Yo-Yo will visit places that epitomize nature’s potential to move the human soul, creating collaborative works of art and convening conversations that seek to strengthen our relationship to our planet and to each other.

Both endeavors continue Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to explore how music not only expresses and creates meaning, but also helps us to imagine and build a stronger society and a better future.

It was this belief that inspired Yo-Yo to establish Silkroad, a collective of artists from around the world who create music that engages their many traditions. Through his work with Silkroad, as well as throughout his career, Yo-Yo Ma has sought to expand the classical cello repertoire, premiering works by composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Zhao Lin, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giovanni Sollima, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, and John Williams.

In addition to his work as a performing artist, Yo-Yo has partnered with communities and institutions from Chicago to Guangzhou to develop programs that advocate for a more human-centered world. Among his many roles, Yo-Yo is a UN Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, and a member of the board of Nia Tero, the US-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide.

Yo-Yo’s discography of more than 100 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to his many iconic renditions of the Western classical canon, he has made recordings that defy categorization, among them “Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey” with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil. Yo-Yo’s recent recordings include: “Sing Me Home,” with the Silkroad Ensemble, which won the 2016 Grammy for Best World Music Album; “Six Evolutions — Bach: Cello Suites;” and “Songs of Comfort and Hope,” created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yo-Yo’s latest album is “Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5,” with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.

Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.

Yo-Yo and his wife have two children. He plays three instruments: a 2003 instrument made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.

Booklet for Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" and Op. 1, No. 3