sinfoniekonzert09

He is a “favourite of the gods” was the headline of a review of Leonidas Kavakos’s conducting debut in Berlin two years ago. Another critic wrote with astonishment, “The Greek throws himself into the score and the orchestra and seems to play along with them, as if he himself were the concertmaster, leading the strings.” In J. S. Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Leonidas Kavakos will actually fill this dual role, which was common during the Baroque era, for the first time with the Gürzenich Orchestra. The violinist, who won the Sibelius and Paganini violin competitions, has long since established himself as a conductor as well. Historical performance practice, which is customary with the Bach concertos, is not a dogma for him, however. “For me, there is more than just technique. It is more important to bring out the human elements behind the music. What is the mood, what nuances are there? It is like a painter with many colours on his palette.” This multitude of colours is also the thread that runs through his programme. In the “Eroica”, a Ludwig van Beethoven exhilarated by the humanistic ideals of the French Revolution confronts us with a heroic Classical work. Jean Sibelius plunges the listener into the emotional depths of a tragic love in his evocative late Romantic suite, »Pelléas et Mélisande«.