Concert review: Nicolas Altstaedt (cello) Thomas Dunford (lute)

Now and then a recital comes along that sneaks into your consciousness with ghostly quietude and then stays there, delicately lodged, encouraging contemplation long after the event. In this meditative essay – with a spine of J.S. Bach and Marin Marais – cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and lutenist Thomas Dunford created a reverent oasis, gratefully far from the anxieties of the present day.

In the first half, works from Marin Marais’s Pièces de viole, Book 4, and a whiff of Forqueray alternated with Dunford’s lute arrangement of Bach’s First Cello Suite in G major. Virtually all of the hour was thrillingly hushed, and the audience at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, in the pristine acoustic of the Perelman Theater, was a model of poised, grateful attention.

After the interval, Altstaedt returned for a starkly abstract reading of Bach’s C minor Cello Suite (no.5), as before with no vibrato, and an undercurrent of anxiety and sorrow. Dunford returned for one more set by Duparc (the Lento from the Cello Sonata in A minor), Forqueray’s ‘Le Buisson’ from Suite no.2, and ended with more Marais, a bouquet of three flowers: ‘Les voix humaines’ (Book 2), ‘Grand Ballet’ (Book 3) and ‘Le Bourbillon’ (Book 4).

As an encore, the musicians asked the audience to hum a C major chord, setting the stage for a gossamer arrangement of Blackbird by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Their instrumental work, coupled with gentle vocalising, was unbelievably charming.

BRUCE HODGES