The event was preceded by an informative talk by the appealing and enthusiastic Ara Guzelimian—the Dean and Provost of the Juilliard School—in which he interestingly commented on the sources in traditional Russian music at the basis of The Rite of Spring, the concluding work on the program, as discovered by scholars such as the eminent Richard Taruskin. The proceedings proper began with a thrilling, crystalline account of the 1947 version of the composer's first ballet score, the dazzling Pétrouchka, after the original orchestration completed in 1911. The musicians received an enthusiastic ovation.
The remarkable virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos then took the stage for a masterly reading of the extraordinary Violin Concerto, a performance notable for the somber intensity of its more introspective passages but equally compelling in its more ebullient registers. Passionate applause elicited a fine, all-too-brief encore, the Adagietto from the Sonata for Solo Violin by the Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas.
The program finished astonishingly with a glorious realization of the magnificent The Rite of Spring. The artists earned another ardent reception—I look forward eagerly to their return to the New York concert stages.