The penultimate recital in Harrogate International Festival's 2008 series of Sunday morning coffee concerts proved to be another outstanding success.  The cellist Raphael Wallfish, with John York, performed a programme of music for cello and piano from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Bartok's Rhapsody No.1 proved to be a lively opening with its rhythmic interplay between the two instruments and the use of folk-material, one melody bearing a distinct similarity to the American Shaker Tune.

Beethoven's Sonata in D, Op. 102, No.2 is very much a transitional work bridging the middle and late period's of the composer's creative life. The performers showed a deep understanding of this, especially in the first movement, as well as features of the music that hearken back to the eighteenth century. These included one of Beethoven's more true melodic lines which is almost Mozartian in its Classical shaping. The central movement was approached with due concern for its vivid contrasts from the mysterious opening to the dark ending via its more melodious sections. The outstanding rapport demonstrated by the two performers was most evident here, as the perfect ensemble between them, despite an absolute minimum of signalling, showed. The scherzo-like fugue, which had its moments of Beethovenian drama, proved the ideal third-movement finale.

Frank Bridge was inspired to compose several works and short pieces for the leading cellists of his time. Elegie, Mazurka, Melody and Scherzo were presented as suitably contrasting examples of the latter and Bridge's skill with rhythm and melody, especially, was exposed in a characterful manner.

The recital concluded with Brahms's Sonata in F, Op. 99 the four movements of which enabled the performers yet again to display their skill at successfully handling different moods and styles. Each player understood perfectly his rôle in the music's structure and texture so that the passionate slow and vigorous third movements counter-balanced the authoritative first and lively finale. A wide range of tone-colour was heard and the contemplative encore, No. 2 from Schumann's Five Pieces, proved a suitable concluding antidote.

by Paul Dyson

Curtesy of the Harrogate Advertiser