Ravel & Enescu: Music for Violin and Piano

“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 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 'pickup' of motives between violin and piano; you're unlikely to hear a more supportive or better gauged account of the piano part.

These aren't 'showy' performances. Though 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. The highspot 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.

These performances justify consideration for their warmth, intelligence and superb sound.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010