Maurice Ravel; George Enescu - Works for Violin & Piano (Leonidas Kavakos; Péter Nagy)

Information

Composer: Maurice Ravel; George Enescu

• Ravel - Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor "Sonate posthume"
• Enescu - Impressions d'Enfance in D major, Op. 28
• Enescu - Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor "dans le caractère populaire roumain", Op. 25
• Ravel - Tzigane

Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Péter Nagy, piano

Date: 2002

Label: ECM

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Review

A compelling programme based principally around the figure of Georges Enescu, both as composer and as a performing phenomenon, the latter probably inspiring Ravel’s Violin Sonata of 1897, a lavish essay redolent of romantic early Debussy. Both Ravel pieces respond handsomely to Leonidas Kavakos’s agile and refined approach, Tzigane in particular being meticulously prepared, the partnership with Péter Nagy ensuring clarity in matters of articulation and the ‘pick-up’ of motives between violin and piano. Indeed I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more supportive or more sensitively gauged account of the piano part.

These are not ‘showy’ performances. For although Kavakos is audibly appreciative of the folk flavouring in Enescu’s Third Sonata, he treats the abstract element as paramount, suggesting keen parallels with the violin sonatas of Bartók. Again Nagy takes the greatest care over such issues as rhythm, texture and the shape of individual phrases: his precise musical thinking could serve as an object lesson in such matters. For me the high spot of the performance is the cantorial closing section of the Andante second movement, so exquisitely turned and sustained. The graphic Impressions d’enfance, with its lullaby, caged bird and cuckoo-clock, chirping cricket and ecstatic dawn, is endlessly fascinating, again rich in folk references, the sort that Enescu worked in to his Romanian Rhapsodies.

Kavakos’s principal modern rival in the Enescu works is Sherban Lupu on Electrecord, less pristine but with a willingness to dance, a dashing, husky character that I find irresistible. Lupu curls and buoys the music in a way that’s reminiscent both of Enescu himself and of the young Yehudi Menuhin. While Kavakos demonstrates the folk element, Lupu, Enescu and Menuhin live it: they have the idiom on tap. But local accents and flavours aside, these new performances justify consideration for their warmth, intelligence and superb sound, not to mention ECM’s (or maybe Kavakos’s) imaginative programming.

— Rob Cowan

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Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended the Paris Conservatoire. After leaving the conservatoire, he found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles.

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George Enescu (19 August 1881 – 4 May 1955) was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher. He studied violin the Vienna Conservatory from the age of seven, then went on to Paris, where he studied composition. Among his teachers were Robert Fuchs, Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. Enescu's chamber works included 3 violin sonatas, 3 piano sonatas, and 2 string quartets. Among his orchestral works were 3 symphonies, 2 Romanian rhapsodies, and an overture on Romanian folk themes. National themes are also used in his opera Oedipe (1936). Enescu was also greatly respected as a violin teacher.

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Leonidas Kavakos (born 30 October 1967) is a Greek violinist and conductor. Born in Athens, he studied violin from an early age and gained recognition after winning major competitions, including the 1986 Sibelius Competition and the 1988 Paganini Competition. Kavakos regularly performs with leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic and Berliner Philharmoniker. He has also built a successful conducting career with renowned orchestras worldwide. An exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical, he is celebrated for acclaimed Beethoven and Bach recordings. He plays the 'Willemotte' Stradivarius violin of 1734.

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Péter Nagy (born 1960) is a Hungarian pianist. He studied at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest and won several competitions, including the 1979 Hungarian Radio Piano Competition. His international career began in the late 1970s with performances across Europe and later expanded worldwide, including appearances at the Sydney Opera House and major festivals such as Marlboro Music Festival. Nagy has collaborated with leading musicians including Leonidas Kavakos and Kim Kashkashian, while recording extensively for labels such as Naxos Records. In 2001, he received Hungary's prestigious Liszt Award.

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