Avi Avital J.S. BACH

Avi Avital is one of the world's leading classical mandolinists, gracing concert halls from Tel Aviv to Munich to New York. But the young Israeli says he discovered the mandolin only by coincidence.

"When I was a kid, I had a neighbor who played the mandolin — the neighbor from upstairs," Avital tells NPR's Guy Raz. "It was one of those buildings where all the doors are open and all the neighbors are friends and more close than relatives. It was like one big family.

"I arrived to the age where I wanted to do something after school, and I liked music very much, so when my mother asked me, 'What would you like to play?' I said, 'Mandolin, like my neighbor.'"

Avital says it was also a coincidence that he was able to learn to play classical mandolin in his hometown of Beersheba, a small city in the desert of southern Israel.

It is a seductive sound and his playing is dazzling. Avital has transcribed for the mandolin, music originally written for three other instruments. The texture is different without being distorted. He achieves a bright and brilliant articulation in the works for harpsichord, a more lyrical virtuosity in the violin concerto and a mesmerising woody legato in the flute sonata, demonstrating not just the adaptability of the instrument but the versatility of his playing as well. His "tempi" are brisk and energised without being rushed and the slow movements are taken with becalming sensitivity . . . [the musicians are] doing more than ample justice to the sounds of the baroque. (Shamistha de Soysa)