LEONIDAS KAVAKOS / MAO FUJITA
Born from a meeting in Verbier, the two virtuosos come together in a program of great elegance, where their rapport and the intensity of their playing can be fully expressed.
Programme
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Sonata No. 21 in E minor K. 304
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major Op. 78
Interval
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Fantasy in C major for Violin and Piano D. 934
Yuja Wang and Leonidas Kavakos play Brahms: No.1 Violin Sonata in G Major op.78 at Verbier Festival
Wracked by the death of his beloved mother, Mozart’s ‘Sonata in E’ (the only one he composed in minor) foreshadows the fever of Beethoven in the first movement and the melancholy of Schubert in the second.
The mood is more serene in Brahms’s first Sonata, made up of melodic movements that glide gently along the score – a gesture reminiscent of the figuration of the Rhine in the ‘Tetralogy’.
Similar undulations can be found in the introduction to Schubert’s Fantasia, which conceals astonishing complexity beneath its nursery rhyme-like appearance. This blossoms into playful episodes, with the composer giving free rein to the evocative power of his writing.