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Those with a soft spot for Sibelius may remember a recording made 30 years ago which paired an excellent performance of his Violin Concerto (1905) with an account of that work’s oddly Brucknerian first version (1903–04). The recording, on BIS, was a revelation in more ways than one—it documented Sibelius’ ability to radically improve upon himself, and it introduced a remarkable young talent, 24-year-old violinist Leonidas Kavakos, to the record-buying public. Now a mature artist, Kavakos stands on the summit of Parnassus with these exquisitely turned realizations of Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin. His playing is fleet and fluent, impeccably accurate throughout. Inner voices are beautifully sounded and rhythmically even, the tone lovely no matter how great the difficulty—and most important of all, the long line of each piece and each movement is brought across, often to powerful emotional effect. The recording has fabulous presence, with Kavakos situated in the center of a nicely reverberant space (Berlin’s Church of The Holy Cross), yet sounding very intimate thanks to the close mic. Wonderful notes by Tully Potter contribute to the excellence of the effort.
By Ted Libbey
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