Augustin Hadelich eager to perform Dvořák’s Violin Concerto with the CSO

As Augustin Hadelich begins his fifth decade and settles in as an established violin virtuoso, his playing has grown and matured, but he has lost none of the youthful earnestness, curiosity and enthusiasm that has made him popular with fans.

“It’s hard to notice the evolution of my playing as it happens,” he said via email. “But whenever I go back and listen to recordings from 10 years or so ago, I realize how differently I played back then. There are many aspects to it, starting with the fact that I have a lot more experience now and have spent so many additional years thinking about music, which influences all my musical choices in some way.”

Hadelich made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut during the 2015-16 season, but he did not return to the orchestra until last year at the Ravinia Festival. He will make his third appearance during a set of concerts Oct. 9 and 11 with guest conductor Philippe Jordan, who will become music director of the Orchestre National de France in 2027-28.

“It’s my first time playing a big, meaty Romantic concerto with them,” Hadelich said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

Hadelich is referring to is Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53, which the Czech composer wrote in 1879, 15 years before his more frequently heard Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104. “I think they’re very different, and I could not pick one over the other,” he said. “The Cello Concerto is so famous because it’s one of the most important pieces written for the instrument, whereas violinists have so many other great concertos. But I don’t believe the Violin Concerto is a lesser work than the Cello Concerto.”

Although the work is influenced by Brahms, the first two movements follow the structure of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, which was written 13 years earlier, beginning with a passionate first movement with what Hadelich calls “free, improvisatory passages” that establish the soloist as the protagonist for the story.

“The lyrical slow movement is the real heart of the work,” he said. “The folksy last movement is a spirited furiant dance [with a dumka (folk) interlude]. Throughout the work, Dvořák’s characteristic Czech harmonies, lyricism and references to folk music create a soulful depth, and the piece is enormously fun to play.”

In many sections of the concerto, Hadelich said, the violin is not soaring above the orchestra, but playing with it — the “middle voice of a chorale” surrounded by the sounds of the horns and winds. “This means that soloist, conductor and wind players must breathe and phrase together, and listen and react to each other constantly, like chamber music,” he said. “This is both the work’s greatest challenge and also what makes it special.”

Despite Dvořák’s fame, this piece has never achieved the same popularity as the violin concertos by Tchaikovsky or Bruch. According to Hadelich, it got off to a bad start, because Joseph Joachim, who premiered the violin concertos by Bruch and Johannes Brahms, didn’t care for this work. “He felt that the form was too rhapsodic, the orchestration too full and probably felt that the passage work was too difficult,” Hadelich said. “So he never performed the work.”

It also didn’t help that some sections are more difficult to perform than many other 19th-century concertos, and Hadelich suspects these challenges explain why few of the great violinists of the early 20th century championed it. “Even today, the limiting factor is still that many violinists don’t carry it in their repertoire," he said. But the work is nevertheless programmed more often than in the past and is always popular with audiences.”

The son of German parents, Hadelich, 41, grew up in Italy and began taking lessons on the violin at age 5. He was quickly identified as a prodigy, but his violin career was nearly derailed at 15 when a fire ravaged his family home, burning his face, abdomen and bow arm. Fortunately, his hands and fingers — so important to the playing of the violin — were spared, and after months of rehabilitation and skin grafts, he was able to pick up the violin again and restart his training. In 2004, he began studies at Juilliard at age 20 and earned an artist-diploma from the school.  

He grabbed the classical world’s attention in 2006, when he won the gold medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and received a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009. The following year at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado, Hadelich stepped in at the last minute for an ailing Nikolaj Znaider in what became his debut with the New York Philharmonic and another career milestone.

Since moving to the United States to study at Juilliard with Joel Smirnoff, a former member of the famed Juilliard String Quartet, Hadelich has made New York City his home. He was sworn in as an American citizen in September 2014. During the ceremony at the Manhattan Federal Court, Hadelich performed a violin version of “America the Beautiful.”

Unlike some performers who pare back their schedules once they have proven themselves and built an international reputation, Hadelich continues to go full bore, performing an astounding 115-120 concerts a year.

“I find that when I perform all the time, I am more comfortable on stage and end up playing better,“ he said. ”Right now, I enjoy everything I do so much, but I’m sure there will come a time when I will play less.”

Befitting his standing in the classical world, Hadelich will collaborate with several of this country’s top orchestras in 2025-26, in addition to the CSO. These include the New York Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as European ensembles such as the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, Germany, and Orchestre National de Lyon in France.

In April, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced that Hadelich would serve as its 2025-26 artist-in-residence, performing two programs with orchestra, appearing with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, presenting two recitals and working with students in the community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the violinist was unable to perform live concerts, Hadelich used the time to make a recording for the Warner Classics label of J.S. Bach’s celebrated Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (BWV 1001-1006). The two-volume album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2022.

After devoting so much time to the project, Hadelich thought it was only natural to begin performing some of the works live, something he had never done previously. He has found such solo concerts to be rewarding but planning them is a challenge because he is on the only performer onstage.

“Since there are no low instruments and only the sound of one violin, it can get exhausting for the listener,“ he said. ”Because of this, I do always make sure that the program has a broad mix of styles and lots of contrasts. For example, I like to contrast Bach with Ysaÿe, Paganini or contemporary or jazz-inspired works. Ultimately though, the Bach works are the heart of the programs.”

Hadelich will perform such a program on Sept. 30 at the University of Georgia. In addition to Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor, it will include Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk (2002) and Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 5 in G Major.

“When I play a solo violin recital, I never have a real break in the performance because when I stop playing, the music stops," he said. “On the other hand, rehearsals are easy to organize: rehearsing for a solo program is basically just practicing.”