CANCELLED: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Leonidas Kavakos

In the second programme of his residency with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Leonidas Kavakos assumes various roles: in a double function as violinist and conductor, he turns his attention to two very different composers and styles. The first half of the concert focuses on Mozart, whose architectural mastery Kavakos once compared in an interview with the structure of a Greek temple. He starts by exploring these proportions as the soloist in the Violin Concerto in G major, then he swaps the violin for the conductor’s baton to lead the orchestra in Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, which the composer wrote at the young age of 17.

After the interval, we hear music from a completely different world. Although Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony opens in a minor key, the work’s underlying mood is lyrical. The idyllic Czech landscape seems to have left its mark in the pastoral, yet gently melancholy tone of the score.