Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
The calm authority and probing insight that Alban Gerhardt brings to his performances make him one of the finest cellists around. Everything is put at the service of the music; the playing is tightly focused, with no head-tossing or mannered, empty, gestures. Yet there is a freshness and immediacy about his interpretation that is wholly compelling, as the two Bach cello suites in this solo recital amply demonstrated.
Cellists sometimes open the Suite No 1 in G major as though they had just clambered on to an exercise bike of an early morning. But here, from the Prelude's first expansive arpeggios, Gerhardt was gentle and inspired, and seemed to breathe the phrases as though singing a melody. Even in the faster Allemande and Courante, not a note was sacrificed to mere function: each had its place in the expressive scheme, with the clarity of articulation ensuring that the rhythmic and harmonic components emerged to add a further elegant logic to the overall line.
By contrast, Gerhardt introduced a breathtaking freedom and fantasy into the virtuoso prelude of the Suite No 6 in D major. In the ensuing movements, he also succeeded in colouring the sound so as to define all the different voices implied by the one instrument. Mstislav Rostropovich thought of this suite as Bach's "symphony" for solo cello, and the textural richness achieved by Gerhardt proved the point. Yet nothing was over-reverential; the first Gavotte had a particularly light and almost teasing playfulness.
Separating the Bach suites was György Ligeti's two-movement Sonata. The slightly unusual edge that helps characterise the tone of Gerhardt's Venetian Gofriller cello came into its own in the simple but poignant utterances of Dialogo, while the fiery Hungarian energy of the Capriccio was impeccably controlled.