Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto

Dallas Symphony Orchestra Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Orchestral Series

Monday, July 6, 2026 at 6pm Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater

Acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos makes his Bravo! Vail debut, performing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, in a program that includes Mozart’s joyous Symphony No. 35, Haffner, led by Fabio Luisi.

Fabio Luisi, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Sophia Jani What do flowers do at night?
MOZART Symphony No. 35 in D major, Haffner
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto

All artists, programs, and pricing subject to change.

What do flowers do at night? (2018) S O P H I A J A N I ( B . 1 9 8 9 )

The German composer Sophia
Jani is now completing
her three-year term as
composer-in-residence of
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, which
first performed What do flowers do
at night? this past March in Dallas.
The work had been premiered in July
2022 by the New Jersey Symphony,
David Robertson conducting, while
she was participating in the Edward
T. Cone Composition Institute at
Princeton University. Prior to that she
studied at the Conservatoire Jacques
Thibaud (Bordeaux); the University of
Augsburg; the University of Music and
Performing Arts Munich; and the Yale
University School of Music, where she
was supported by a Fulbright grant.

Her official bio says that she “takes
a poetically minimalist approach
to composition and belongs to
a new generation of artists who
were influenced early on by the
boundlessness of the 21st century.” In
2023 she received a fellowship to be
musical artist in residence of the Arvo
Pärt Centre in Estonia. She is one of
the founders and artistic directors of
Feet Become Ears, a German platform
that commissions, presents, and
celebrates contemporary chamber
music. Two CDs devoted to her music
have been released: Music as a mirror
(2022), a collection of chamber works
that was nominated for the German
music prize Opus Klassik, and Six
Pieces for Solo Violin (2024).

“What do flowers do at night?”
Jani explains, ”was inspired by a plant
called Selenicereus grandiflorus—a
cactus species that blooms in a
beautiful way, but only once a year for
one night. The charged, mysterious
mood that comes with the anticipation
of a unique event served as the
starting point and form-giver for this
work, and the beauty and elegance
of the blossom, seemingly created
so effortlessly by nature, served as
an inspiration for me in crafting my
composition.

Symphony No. 35 in D major, Haffner, K.385 (1782-83) W O L F G A N G A M A D È M O Z A R T (1756-91)

In the spring of 1781, Mozart
left his native Salzburg for good
and settled in Vienna. Though he
was happy to put the provincial
frustrations of Salzburg behind him,
he still maintained friendships there.
The Haffner family had been close to
the Mozarts for years, and Leopold,
our composer’s father, reported to his
son that on July 29, 1782, Wolfgang’s
friend Sigmund Haffner was to be
elevated to the nobility. In 1776, Mozart
had written a serenade (the so-called
Haffner Serenade) for the wedding
of Sigmund’s sister, and Leopold felt
sure that Wolfgang would want to
contribute a symphony to Sigmund’s
own ennoblement ceremony. It was
a very busy summer for Wolfgang,
but he promised nonetheless, “You’ll
definitely get something from me
in every mail—I’ll work as fast as
possible—and so far as haste permits,
I’ll write well.”

A week later he sent the
opening fast movement, which
may have arrived in Salzburg in
time for the ennoblement, and the
other movements—plus an extra
march—apparently followed in short
order. Later that year, he re-worked
his score for a Lenten concert he
was going to present in Vienna the
following March. “The new Haffner
Symphony has positively amazed
me,” he reported to his father, “for I
had forgotten every single note of it.
It must surely produce a good effect.”
That it does, thanks in part to the
expanded woodwind orchestration
Mozart provided at that point. The
Vienna concert was a great success.
The composer wrote to his father: “The
theater could not have been more
crowded and ... every box was full. But
what pleased me most of all was that
His Majesty the Emperor was present
and, goodness!—how delighted he
was and how he applauded me!”

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 (1878) P YOT R I LY I C H TC H A I KO V S K Y (1840-93)

In early 1878, Pyotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky traveled with his young
violinist-friend Josif Kotek for an
extended residency in Switzerland.
They played through music together,
including Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole,
a violin concerto in all but name; and
that inspired Tchaikovsky to write a
violin concerto himself. He composed
it in a heat of inspiration in late March
and early April, with Kotek offering
technical advice on the solo part.
When Tchaikovsky sent the score to
his patron Nadezhda von Meck, she
wrote back that she didn’t like it; to
his credit, the composer (who was
often given to self-doubt) defended
his piece, although he did decide on
his own to replace his original slow
movement. (The earlier one lives on
as a standalone piece for violin and
orchestra or piano titled Souvenir
d’un lieu cher.) Further objections
came from the violinist Leopold
Auer, to whom Tchaikovsky wanted
to entrust the premiere: he declared
it unplayable, much as the pianist
Nikolai Rubinstein had dismissed
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1
four years earlier. Too bad for Auer:
the honor of the premiere instead
went to Adolf Brodsky, who worked
on the concerto for more than two
years before he dared to play it. Auer
eventually changed his mind;
he not only performed it but also
taught it to his students, many of
whom became leading interpreters of
this work, too—names of legend such
as Elman, Heifetz, Milstein, Shumsky,
and Zimbalist.
The first movement, by turns
balletically graceful and comparatively
urgent, makes difficult technical
demands, but the fireworks generally
sparkle as counterpoint to the
overall gentility. The slow movement
is elegiac but not depressive
(Tchaikovsky could easily fall into that
trap), and the Finale emerges without
a break, serving up a dazzling array of
pyrotechnics.