A 21-year-old Spanish violinist emerges from a crowded field of musical prodigies

By Joshua Barone / © The New York Times

SALZBURG, Austria — The stage of the Felsenreitschule, a theater carved from the side of a mountain in Salzburg, Austria, is about 130 feet wide. During concerts, artists come out from catacombs at the side, beginning a walk to the center that, depending on nerves, can feel punishingly long.

The 21-year-old violinist María Dueñas made that journey under the spotlights for her debut at the prestigious Salzburg Festival one night this summer. But, instead of nerves, she felt comfort the moment she saw the seated orchestra.

“I could tell that I was in a safe space,” she said the next morning over coffee.

She looked beyond the lights to the full house, taking in the audience's energy. Once she found her place, nestled in the semicircle of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, she raised her bow and let out a steady, then soulful open G at the start of Max Bruch's First Violin Concerto. During the slow second movement, she listened to the hall as she played and noticed that she couldn't hear people breathing.

“That, for me,” she said, “is a very good concert.”

Stunned silence is common at performances by Dueñas, who, in an industry always eager for the next prodigy, has emerged as something particularly special: a strong-willed young artist with something to say, and the skill to say it brilliantly.

Dueñas infuses well-trodden repertoire, like the Bruch, with fresh perspective and vigor; in new pieces written for her, she plays with the kind of passionate advocacy that can easily win over a skeptical audience. And now, having performed with some of the world's top orchestras, she is achieving another milestone: On Tuesday she makes her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall, with a balanced program of classics and a premiere.

“She has her own tone, her own language, and she never copies the great violinists,” said Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra music director Manfred Honeck, a collaborator and champion. “And yet I am convinced that she will be one of them, the Perlmans and Oistrakhs of the future.”

Dueñas is scheduled to perform with Honeck and the orchestra Feb. 14-16 in Carlos Simon’s Four Black American Dances. Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 3 and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”

Dueñas remembers hearing a violin for the first time in the car. Born in Granada, Spain, to parents who appreciated music but played only informally, she would listen to recordings on drives. Then, when she was around 5, she saw a solo violinist in concert, and before long, she was enrolled in lessons.

She learned the instrument quickly, mostly because she loved to practice.

“I didn't see it as work or something I had to do,” Dueñas said. “It was something I wanted to do, because it was so fun. It was probably good for me to be naive.”

By 7, she was enrolled at the local conservatory, about five years before the normal age. But after that she hit a wall. The next step would have been to study at the university level, but, as an 11-year-old, she couldn't start for another seven years. And her family couldn't afford the lessons she needed.

Salvation came in the form of a scholarship from Juventudes Musicales de Madrid, which Dueñas won through an audition as the youngest applicant. With that money, she was able to study abroad in Dresden, Germany, and the whole family came along.

“We are three kids, and my parents,” she said. “So it was such a big risk for everyone. What if I said I didn't want to play violin anymore after a year?”

None of them spoke German at first, and Dueñas had to manage both her music education and online Spanish schooling. She also had the responsibility of playing a valuable instrument on loan to her: an 18th-century violin by Nicolò Gagliano. It was a lot to handle.

“I had to be strong, but it made me grow, for sure.”

After a year and a half, the family moved again, to Vienna, where they have lived since. Dueñas began to study with Boris Kuschnir, her most formative teacher, and spent her free time taking in the city's museums, opera houses and concert halls. She even learned Austrian ballroom dancing.

Along the way, she took up composition, starting with cadenzas to concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, and then something small for piano.

“When you write a cadenza, you have to analyze the piece so much more deeply,” she said. “You can see that Beethoven, for example, was not very fixed about his ideas. And that's also the way one should approach his music.”

By the time Dueñas was 14, she was winning worldwide competitions. Quickly, videos of her spread throughout the classical world: from the Zhuhai Violin Competition in China, which she won in 2017, and from the Menuhin Competition, which she won in 2021. (The Menuhin prize included another loan, a 1710 Stradivarius violin, which she alternates with her Gagliano depending on the repertoire.)

People in the field have talked about “her Lalo,” referring to her videos of Lalo's “Symphonie Espagnole,” with the kind of shorthand often used for legendary performances.

Management agencies came calling, as did record labels. She ended up at the same agency as Honeck, the conductor, whom she met after one of his concerts.

They went to the basement of the storied Musikverein in Vienna, and she played for him. Her technique, he said, was impressive. So were her sound and her expressivity. He tested her by asking her to play some Mozart that she hadn't prepared, which she did “really wonderfully.”

“I decided in that moment,” he said, “that I wanted to support her however I could.”

Honeck invited her to join the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on tour as a soloist. One night in Stockholm, he said, they parted ways late, after a post-concert dinner. Everyone went to sleep except Dueñas and Kuschnir, her teacher. They retreated to their hotel and watched a recording of the performance until 2 a.m., analyzing it and making changes for the next evening.

Dueñas brought similar rigor to “Beethoven and Beyond,” an album from last year with Honeck and the Vienna Symphony on Deutsche Grammophon.

Ambitiously, she recorded and released five different versions of the cadenzas for Beethoven's Violin Concerto: her own, and those by Camille Saint-Saëns, Louis Spohr, Eugène Ysaÿe and Henryk Wieniawski. She had a direct hand in the editing process, collaborating with Honeck and the engineers to make what Honeck called “a great product that is very her.”

“I had doubts about climbing this mountain so early,” he added. “Beethoven is the top of the concertos. But she really had something to say. And when she has played it 100 times somewhere else, I'm sure she will have even stronger opinions of the piece.”

Another major conductor fell for Dueñas' playing: Gustavo Dudamel, the superstar maestro of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was sent a video of her Lalo, and even on YouTube could see, he said, “she has something.”

Dudamel said she reminded him of Federico García Lorca's idea of “el Duende.”

“She has that leprechaun, the magic,” he said. “It goes beyond technical talent. She has an artistic soul. She's fire. But at the same time she can be water. She adapts, but always with that unique, special passion that she has.”

When he and the Philharmonic commissioned a new violin concerto from Gabriela Ortiz, he suggested that it be written for Dueñas. During the pandemic, Ortiz spoke with her on Zoom, and asked, “If I write a piece for you, could you tell me how much time you need?”

“She said two weeks!” Ortiz said with a laugh. “I was really surprised, and then she said, ‘Well, three weeks.’”

Ortiz was tickled by her energy and confidence, then shocked when, at their first meeting, Dueñas played through the piece, “Altar de Cuerda,” with the perfection and energy of someone who had been performing it for years.

The concerto premiered in 2022 to rave reviews in Los Angeles and on tour, including a stop at Carnegie Hall. But Dueñas' interpretation has since changed.

“Every time she's doing something different,” Ortiz said, “and always taking risks.”

Dueñas strives for that searching sense of adventure in every performance.

“The audience can feel when you've played something the same 100 times,” she said.

She has also commissioned more music, and begun to balance the classic and contemporary in her repertoire. (To that end, her next Deutsche Grammophon release, which was announced on Monday, is a recording of Niccolò Paganini's 24 Caprices, and other short pieces, including caprices by Ortiz and Jordi Cervelló, a Spanish composer who died in 2022.)

As Dueñas settles into her career, she is also trying to claim more time for herself, something she never thought of during her teenage years. She is still a university student in Austria, learning violin performance and pedagogy, and making sure she has space for a personal life and exercise.

Her performance plans, which now stretch well into 2026, include taking on Karol Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto. At her Carnegie recital debut, with pianist Alexander Malofeev, she programmed Szymanowski's Violin Sonata, as well as the famous Franck Sonata and the American premiere of Ortiz's “De Cuerda y Madera.”

It's a balanced evening that, she hopes, will showcase both her artistic identity and her evolution.

“For me, it has always been clear what I want to achieve with music, which is having a distinct voice,” Dueñas said. “When I listen to Heifetz and Oistrakh, I can tell who's playing immediately. I'm not there yet, but that's my goal.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.