“After the musicians of the New York Philharmonic finished Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto on Thursday night, they did something they don’t usually do: They applauded the soloist.” (New York Times, 5.5.2023) Leonidas Kavakos first conquered Finnish audiences and then the rest of the world. This spring marks 40 years since his success in the Sibelius Violin Competition. “Free but happy – frei aber froh” was the motto of the young Johannes Brahms, which he returned to at the age of 50 in the first notes of his Third Symphony, F-A♭-F.
From 1936 onwards, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) found himself on the black list of composers of music condemned as “formalist” and therefore banned. It meant cancelled performances of his music and dismissal from his position at the conservatories in Moscow and Leningrad. For five years, he dutifully penned patriotic cantatas and scores for propaganda films that met the demand for “social realism”, while secretly composing works in the way he wished. One was his first Violin Concerto, which was premiered by David Oistrakh with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in 1955. Only two months later, Oistrakh took it on tour to the USA, where it was a tremendous hit. As regards social realism, the concerto was playing with fire. The first movement is a gloomy nocturne, like a solitary lament, while the second at times bears echoes of Jewish klezmer, which the regime most certainly would not have countenanced. The third, a passacaglia, is like a funeral march and the finale is a bag of dashing circus tricks. Legend has it that Oistrakh had to beg Shostakovich to give him a moment’s rest between the movements at least to wipe the sweat from his brow.
For Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), the symphony, and above all the symphonies of Beethoven, represented the height of perfection in terms of form and classical beauty. He was so daunted by his “giant” predecessor that he was hesitant about trying his hand at the genre, and it is rather ironic that his first symphony was dubbed “Beethoven’s Tenth”, his second “The Pastoral” and his third “Brahms’s Eroica”! The Brahms and Beethoven symphonies nevertheless have virtually nothing in common.
The third is the shortest and most compact of the four Brahms symphonies. The whole work is, as it were, summarised in the first four bars: the motto F–A-flat–F (frei aber froh – free but happy) followed by a quotation from Schumann’s own third symphony, the Rhenish. Brahms then develops his motto in a superb demonstration of development technique lasting around half an hour and causing Clara Schumann to exclaim that the whole symphony was like “one beat of the heart”.
The most striking feature of the symphony is the juxtaposition of major and minor. The second and third movements are lyrical interludes before the impassioned finale in which sharp-eared listeners may catch echoes of Beethoven’s most famous theme. The movements all die away at the end – something no one, not even Beethoven, had ever tried before.
Leonidas Kavakos (born 1967 in Greece) is an internationally renowned violinist of rare quality, celebrated for his unparalleled technique and musicianship. Gramophone, the magazine devoted to classical music, marvelled at Kavakos's exceptional violin skills in a 2016 review. It speculated whether the legendary violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, famed for his almost supernatural abilities, could have matched Kavakos’s mastery. ‘In fact, I wonder if Paganini would have equalled him,’ the review stated.
In the 2024–2025 season, Kavakos is scheduled to perform in Asia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and the USA either as a violin soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, or conductor.
Leonidas Kavakos studied in his native Athens under Stelios Kafantaris and in the USA under Josef Gingold. From autumn 2025, he will serve as a professor at the Basel Academy of Music in Switzerland.
Finnish audiences remember Kavakos as the winner of the 1985 International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki.
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, has established himself as one of the outstanding conductors of his generation. Born in Finland in 1956, he began his career as a violinist. Today, he is renowned as an artist of exceptional versatility and breadth.
Saraste has previously held principal conductorships at the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. As a guest conductor, he appears with major orchestras worldwide, including the Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Coaching and mentoring young musicians is of great importance to Saraste. He is a founding member of the LEAD! Foundation, a mentorship programme for young conductors and soloists.
| Violin 1 Pekka Kauppinen Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä Eija Hartikainen Katariina Jämsä Sanna Kokko Kati Kuusava Helmi Kuusi Elina Lehto Liam Mansfield Kari Olamaa Petri Päivärinne Satu Savioja Elina Viitasaari Anna Tanskanen Violin 2 Anna-Leena Haikola Kamran Omarli Eva Ballaz Teppo Ali-Mattila Heini Eklund Dhyani Gylling Anna-Maria Huohvanainen Siiri Rasta Ángeles Salas Salas Virpi Taskila Serguei Gonzalez Pavlova Öykü Melis Sahin Viola Atte Kilpeläinen Torsten Tiebout Lotta Poijärvi Petteri Poijärvi Tuomas Huttunen Kaarina Ikonen Vuokko Lahtinen Carmen Moggach Liisa Orava Mariette Reefman Cello Lauri Kankkunen Tuomas Ylinen Beata Antikainen Inkeri Rajamäki Fransien Paananen Tommi Wesslund Maria Morfin Venäläinen Bass Ville Väätäinen Oskari Hänninen Eero Ignatius Daniel Kamien Helmi Tikkanen Juraj Valencik | Flute Niamh McKenna Saara Lehtinen Robert Tobin Oboe Hannu Perttilä Paula Malmivaara Nils Rõõmussaar Clarinet Maura Marinucci Anna-Maija Korsimaa Heikki Nikula Bassoon Markus Tuukkanen Mikko-Pekka Svala Noora Van Dok Horn Ville Hiilivirta Miska Miettunen Joonas Seppelin Jonathan Nikkinen Trumpet Thomas Bugnot Michael Olsen Trombone Valtteri Malmivirta Anu Fagerström Jussi Vuorinen Tuba Ilkka Marttila Timpani Tomi Wikström Percussion Xavi Castelló Aràndiga Pasi Suomalainen Harp Anni Kuusimäki Celesta Minnaleena Jankko |
Yes, but only before or after the concert. During the concert we just want you to enjoy the music. This way you won’t disturb the musicians or other audience members.
Only the orchestra has a dress code. You can dress as you like.
You can give the ticket to a friend or donate it to a music student by calling 09-3102 2700 or sending an e-mail to helsinki.philharmonic@hel.fi by 3pm on the day of the concert.
