Leonidas Kavakos, the talented violinist also now known as a conductor, returned to the podium of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with a programme of considerable interest. The concert featured the first Accademia performance of the Study for Strings by Pavel Haas, a Czech composer of Jewish origin who was a victim of the Nazis and who composed this piece when imprisoned at Terezìn. It is a dark, harrowing piece, impossible to read without the filters of time: the core of the work is a pressing rhythmic pattern, which is opposed – or rather, which tries to oppose – an elegant melody, slowly destined to suffocate into the broken chords that close the score. Kavakos' performance only partially succeeded in communicating this non-stop struggle between horror and beauty, and the constant tension on which the score is based was lost in the uncertain directions of one or other groups of strings, which do not form a cohesive whole nor pushed towards the suffocating impetus that would have made the piece truly heartbreaking.
In contrast, came the performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20 in D minor with star of the evening Kirill Gerstein, one of the most beloved and well-known performers in the piano literature today. Gerstein continued to prove himself a master of the cadenza, always of the highest improvisational quality (in the Rondo, he performed Beethoven's well-known cadenza). With a very clean and light touch, he offered the best of his musicality in the Romanza and the Rondo. In the Allegro assai, after offering a playful version of the opening theme, he managed at speed to bring brilliant nuances to the whole movement; easy, then, to forgive a few embellishments that were too fluttery as well as a few too many runs in relation to the orchestral ensemble. Kavakos largely confined himself to the task in hand, but the ensemble was enjoyable, even with a few mismatches. There were excellent performances by the orchestra's principal players in their solos: rounded and delicate-sounding flute, oboe and bassoon.
In the second half of the concert, Kavakos was challenged by a monumental work, Prokofiev' Symphony no. 6 in E flat minor, in which, from its very first chord, it was immediately clear why the organs of Soviet formalism did not like it. Like Haas' Study for Strings, it is a dark work with a turbulent substratum – consider the rigorous beginning entrusted to the brass. This anxiogenic temperament – interrupted at times by the breath of the harps – underlies the score, which Kavakos explored with impetus, leading the Santa Cecilians to an excellent second movement, the whole audience holding its breath. Overall, the performance was interesting, although some lack of cohesion between the players did not make for unforgettable listening.
