This year’s edition of the Malta Arts Festival went off to a superb musical start with cellist Enrico Dindo interpreting the three, even-numbered suites of Bach’s Six For Solo Cello.
Having missed the performance of the other three suites last year, I looked forward to Nos. 2, 4 and 6 in the hallowed ambience of Vittoriosa’s Baroque church of St Lawrence. The music, the performer and the environment blended perfectly and produced an hour or so of splendid music.
The suites are pretty amazing. Similar in structure, idiom and form they are nevertheless a source of endless wonder. The richness of melodic invention, varied texture and rhythmic complexity gush forth in an endless stream.
Challenging technical hurdles punctuate them and these can prove pretty taxing, requiring great skill to overcome them. Dindo has all the necessary attributes: fine musicianship and technical prowess, a deeply felt yet matter-of-fact approach and high concentration. Each suite has a highly distinctive nature and it was Dindo’s ability to project these individual traits that elicited so much well-deserved admiration.
Suite No. 2, in D Minor came across in all its wondrous peregrinations from its Prelude in two parts and the subsequent different and contrasting dance forms, with a very fast courante that stands out for its rapidity which never led to loss of articulation.
If this suite did manage to provide an uplifting feeling, Suite No. 4 in E Flat Major was to be an even greater experience. In view of the key in which it is written (one considered more difficult for the cello) the technical demands on the performer are greater.
There was something special about the way this suite was performed, one providing the peak of accomplishment and satisfaction. It could be felt from the Prelude, building on a descending scale of increasing intensity, calming down, then accelerating again.
The Allemande sounded more vigorous and assertive than its cousin in No. 2 and the Sarabande more profound and richer in tone while the two Bourrées and the concluding Gigue sounded like sheer fun.
In the Suite No. 6 in D Major, the Prelude had a greater sense of urgency while other highlights of this work were the particularly energetic courante and the full, rich, lyrical tones of the Sarabande. The contrasting effects and moods continued in the two gavottes and concluding Gigue.
Repeated applause brought Dindo back for an encore. Saying it was difficult to play anything other than Bach “after Bach”, he decided to go back to the beginning by performing the Prelude from Suite No. 1, in G.