Cellos at Wigmore Hall 30 October to 30 November 2005

Alexander Ivashkin cello; Mikhail Rudy piano 9 November
Britten Cello Suite No.3 Op. 87
Prokofiev /Sapozhnikov Suite from the ballet The Buffoon
Stravinsky Suite italienne from Pulcinella arr. for cello & piano
Chopin Piano Sonata NO.2 in Bb minor Op. 35 'Funeral March'
Schubert Arpeggione Sonata in A minor D. 821

Adam International Cello Festival & Competition, New Zealand
10th Anniversary Gala Prizewinners' Concert 30 November

Cellists: Yoosha Kim, Alice Neary, Laszlo Fenyo, Wolfgang Schmidt, Li-Wei, Monika Leskovar
Pianists: Fali Pavri, Gretel Dowdeswell, Daniel Hill, Gordon Back

Ligeti Sonata for unaccompanied cello;
Beethoven Cello Sonata in C Op. 102 No.1;
Kodaly Adagio; Bartok Rhapsody No.1
Debussy Cello Sonata; Minstrels; Beau Soir; Golliwogg's Cake-Walk (arr. Schmidt); Milhaud Brazileira
Shostakovich Cello Sonata in 0 minor Op. 40
Sollima Alone for solo cello; Piazzolla le Grand Tango

A lavish Russian Cello Spectacular * at Wigmore Hall, dedicated to the memory of Boris Pergamenschikow, and presented by the Violoncello Society of London and Academia Rossica, was the first of three cello events at Wigmore Hall over a span of a month.

Six fine Russian cellists, David Geringas, Leonid Gorokhov, Natalia Gutman, Ivan Monighetti, Sergei Suvorov and Alexander Rudin (who also played the piano with Natalia Gutman) gave a well balanced programme of music by Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Schnittke, Vasks, Penderecki, Rimsky-Korsakov, Arensky and Golovin at which it was a privilege to be present amongst a packed audience of knowledgeable musicians; there were a score and more cellos filling up the cloakroom!

The other accompanists, both of whom made trojan contributions, were Alexander Satz (who had a deft and delicate way with Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style ) and the British pianist Caroline Palmer who made much of the orchestral accompaniment to a Rimsky Coq d'Or Fantasy.

The six superb cellists gave a sequence of all too short performances, the second half appropriately lighter, with each artist distinctively individual in style and tone quality. All of them had given their services free for master classes at RAM earlier in the day. A feast to remember!
* (Full details on a colourful PDF at the above link to the Violoncello Society of London's website)

The showcase of former winners of the Adam Competition, founded in 1995 by cellists Aiexander Ivashkin and Natalia Pavlutskaya, provided a London audience with a chance to hear some fine young cellists with established international careers, and published CVs to match.

The concert was overlong, as is the way with such events, and Wolfgang Schmidt with Fali Pavri went so far over the top with Debussy's Sonata that it felt as if they were trying to stun the jury of yet another competition (do they really need to do so many?) following the with a string of encore pieces that would have gone better at the end of a full length recital. We enjoyed paraticularly the New Zealand/Korean Yoosha Kim in an early Ligeti solo sonata and the last to play, Monika Leskovar, who brought a rapt inwardness, and later spectacular virtuosity, to Sollima's very individual piece Alone, which should be an item to draw to the attention of cellists building repertoires for events like the January PLG series. She was perhaps not extrovert enough to make a comparable hit with Piazolla's Le Grand Tango.

The cello is currently in good health in Britain (represented by Alice Neary) and world wide, with standards impressively high from many colleges internationally. The Wigmore Hall is particularly suited to it, and these made a memorable showcase for the instrument as well as many marvellous performers of several generations.