Janet Banks visits London’s Wigmore Hall on 29 March 2025 for the performance of Piazzolla, Delibes, Grieg and Bryce Dessner
Renowned French cellist Gautier Capuçon launched his weekend at the Wigmore Hall in his role as teacher and supporter of young artists. His international cello ensemble Capucelli, in which each year he is joined by six alumni from his Paris-based ‘Classe d’Excellence’, treated us to a feast of fine playing, synchronised bowing, creative arrangements and rich string sound. Happily, a good number of young people were in the audience, taking advantage of free tickets for under 25s.
Their programme alternated new commissions with popular classics expertly arranged by Capuçon’s other recital partner, Jérôme Ducros. Capuçon did not hog the limelight – every piece saw a complete seating swap and, after a punchy opening with Piazzolla’s La Muerte del Ángel, he personally introduced each former pupil.
Ducros’s arrangements used the whole range of the cello and a good variety of techniques to create satisfyingly varied and interesting textures. Délibes’s ‘Flower Duet’ saw Capuçon and Jeein You gracefully duetting and Grieg’s ‘Hall of the Mountain King’, starting with tiptoeing pizzicato in all parts, worked up to a frenzy of harsh bowing in a crazy accelerando.
Of the new commissions, Bryce Dessner’s The Forest, inspired by the fire in Notre Dame, was particularly effective, conveying the timelessness of the building with combined col legno and stopped harmonics, and the ferocity of the fire with crescendoing semiquavers, while glissandos depicted the leaping flames.
JANET BANKS
Read: The musical pride of France: The Capuçon brothers’ Olympic journey (so far!)
Read: Why cellists make good marathon runners
Review: Gautier Capuçon: Sensations
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