Leonidas Kavakos: Echo Classic - best performance of romantic concerto 2009

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Violin Concerto E minor & Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2
Leonidas Kavakos
Camerata Salzburg - Patrick Demenga - Enrico Pace

The Times
Leonidas Kavakos: Mendelssohn
Geoff Brown
4 stars
"Minutes after finishing listening to Leonidas Kavakos’s enticing account of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with the Camerata Salzburg, the internet told me that the distinguished Greek soloist had just resigned from his post as the orchestra's artistic director. The reason? Continued management instability, with the board up for ejection. No wonder Kavakos is performing at the Proms with another band entirely, Ivan Fischer’s Budapest Festival Orchestra.
Still, there's nothing unstable about this two-disc release. One CD features the concerto; the other Mendelssohn’s two piano trios, for which Kavakos is joined by the Swiss cellist Patrick Demenga and Italian pianist Enrico Pace.
In the trios Kavakos’s artistry is hidden a little by his distant microphone placement. But we know who’s boss in the concerto. The quality fibre of this serious artist is immediately on show in his violin's opening statement, with its finely spun tone and scrupulously enunciated rhythms. He keeps his interpretation fresh and personal as Mendelssohn leads him from turbulent passion through liquid song to the finale’s delicate sparkle. The orchestra is a good partner, too.
The trio performances have their own attractions, despite Kavakos’s place in the shade . Enrico Pace's glittering piano ripples and cascades are delightfully energising, and the microphone loves the aching, velvet hues of Demenga's cello.
Even so, the concerto is the reason to purchase. Deluged with performances in this centenary year, I was beginning to think I never wanted to hear the work again. Kavakos's interpretation showed me I was wrong."

Strad
June 2009
Robin Stowell
"Leonidas Kavakos plays the opening movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with restraint and intelligent musicality, cultivating purity of line and a wide expressive range… He is sentimental but never cloying in the Andante, playing its conclusion with striking freedom, and he skirts the danger with thrilling abandon in the finale.
Kavakos interacts commendably with the orchestra and seems to have pwer in reserve...
Remaining loyal to Mendelssohn for his couplings, Kavakos shows that he is equally at home in the chamber sphere. His partnership with pianist Enrico Pace and cellist Patrick Demenga spawns expressive, technically accomplished and passionately committed readings of the composer’s two piano trios. These players capture the mood contrasts of the outer movements, the lyricism of the andantes and the lightness of the scherzos with skill and artistry. The recording is exemplary."

Classical Source
Colin Anderson
July 2009
Mendelssohn – Violin Concerto in E minor & Piano Trios – Leonidas Kavakos, Patrick Demenga & Enrico Pace
“There must be a good chance that the original plan was to get these three works onto one disc (which is not impossible). Fortunately the release is tailored to the performances. Mendelssohn’s E minor Violin Concerto has a disc to itself. Leonidas Kavakos plays this evergreen favourite (as revised) with easeful technique and aristocratic address; he has the poise to deal nonchalantly with the bustling sections and brings genuine affection for the slower ones; maybe the contrasts are too great, though.
Nevertheless there is freshness here, a real sense of discovery and of making something of the music without being novel for its own sake. With a sympathetic accompaniment and good balance between soloist and orchestra, this is a very enjoyable performance, one that is spontaneous, fiery and lyrical, the slow movement (quite spaciously treated) being the concerto's heart and finding Kavakos at his most Romantic and tonally alluring, the finale an unforced scamper, precise yet joyous with some bubbly woodwind-playing along the way (if not quite opening out as Isaac Stern managed in his touchstone recording with Eugene Ormandy conducting).
Having encouraged a detailed and chamber-like response from Camerata Salzburg, Kavakos now joins Patrick Demenga and Enrico Pace for Mendelssohn’s unequivocally great piano trios. Together they give glorious performances – once again beautifully recorded – that capture the flame and flow of the music and with no confines to ‘period’ performance; these are full-blooded but also subtle accounts of two of the most endearing works in the chamber-music repertoire that really touch the heart, stir the emotions and report Mendelssohn’s genius. Whether in the ‘song without words’ that is the slow movement of the D minor work, or in the lightly nimble playing required for the gossamer scherzo that follows, these artists play as close friends making the most agreeable music.
If anything, the C minor Trio is the greater work, if not giving up its secrets so easily; Kavakos, Demenga and Pace execute wonders with it and leave no doubt as to its stature. There are small details that the Beaux Arts Trio (when consisting of Daniel Guilet, Bernard Greenhouse and Menahem Pressler) made their own, but this ensemble led by Kavakos brings its own brand of ardour and perception and make an outstanding contribution to 'Mendelssohn Year' (he was born in 1809) as well as beyond it."