Music Reviews : Violin Recital by Leonidas Kavakos

Reviewers tend to toss around too casually such a comprehensive term as virtuoso. It has become a catch-all cliche that no longer specifies anything in particular.

But it is the only word that immediately comes to mind in describing Leonidas Kavakos, a boyish-looking, 22-year-old, Athens-born violinist who gave a recital on the Gold Medal series at Ambassador Auditorium Monday night.

Kavakos has technique to burn. In a program mainly devoted to pyrotechnics, Kavakos proved himself the easy master of every style of playing from Tartini and Paganini to Ysaye and Ravel.

Kavakos is a prodigious master of his instrument, and within the limits his program set he offered a sensitive musical profile. He could not very well plumb interpretive depth in such mannerly pieces as Schubert’s Fantasy in C, or in Eugene Ysaye’s unaccompanied Sonata No. 5, Opus 27. There were no soaring lyrical flights but there was never less than a quietly urgent soulfulness that is the violin’s birthright.

By way of novelty, and stressing his enterprise, Kavakos played 12 Caprices for solo violin by Earl Kim that did not break any new compositional paths, but that skillfully explored the violin’s capacity for unorthodox sound.

When Kavakos closed his printed list with Ravel’s “Tzigane,” it was instantly apparent that he commands every shade of modern color, and when he added Kreisler’s “Libesleid” among the encores it was instantly recognizable that he distinguishes between sentiment and sentimentality.

His tone did not suggest lushness or over-ripeness; it was rather a tasteful blend of reticence and innate musicality. For so young a performer, his arsenal of violinistic tricks and turns seemed complete and invariably reliable. Keep an eye on this exceptional talent.

Also remember the name of Anne Epperson, who played the piano parts with the smoothest and most fluent technique and constantly produced shades of pianistic color that skillfully matched the effects of the violinist. Epperson appears to belong in the same exceptional category as Kavakos.