I have always loved works for cello and piano and was very much looking forward to cellist Enrico Dindo’s fourth consecutive appearance at the Malta Arts Festival, this time with pianist Monica Cattarossi, at the President’s Palace Courtyard, Valletta, last Sunday.

It being two centuries since the birth of Chopin and Schumann, the organisers, quite rightly, decided on a programme consisting of works by these composers.

I certainly was not disappointed and I am delighted to say that after having met the performers briefly afterwards, both expressed more than just an interest in coming to Malta yet again for next year’s festival.

This is how the good reputation of a festival is built up. It takes years to establish, but only moments to destroy, which is why a sense of continuity is vital.

Possibly a more extrovert programme may be on the cards next year; something like the magnificent Villa Lobos’ first and fifth Bachianas Brasileiras for an orchestra of cellos with the added bonus of a soprano in the wonderful fifth one. Pleasures yet to come!

Dindo’s mastery of the cello goes beyond superlatives. His expressiveness is paramount. Every little nuance, every fritillaric pianissimo was executed with a delicacy that kept us hanging onto every note while the more rumbustuous passages were not only clear and crisp but also extremely eloquent.

The duo with Cattarossi was a very happy one. It is to be expected that the pianistic element in works by Schumann and Chopin would be more than usually prominent and anything but mere accompaniment.

Cattarossi had a beautiful touch and a poetic dynamic tonal quality that matched Dindo’s.

The three cello and piano works by Schumann were characterised by the composer’s hallmarked flights of romantic passion that some contemporaries deemed unsuitable for young ladies in an age where billiard table legs were draped in skirts to prevent prurient thoughts in impressionable players.

It may seem highly ludicrous in today’s world, where nudity is the norm and ‘body beautiful ‘is the ideal. Schumann’s compositions rollick in romantic passion that is almost manic in its intensity.

His compositions for cello, the voxhumaine of the orchestral family, are as expansive and passionate as one would expect and are, one and all, exquisitely crafted.

It takes musicians like Dindo and Cattarossi to bring this very important element out. Too often is the structural element overshadowed by an overly sturm und drang interpretation.

The balance struck was just perfect. My own favourite remains the Fantasiestucke op 73, with its unforgettable theme that is developed throughout the three pieces.

They are like a l ove duet between the instruments and I found the execution of all three utterly lovely. Unforgettable was the third piece of the Funf Stucke inVolkstonop102 with its amazing double stop passage while the lovely AdagioundAllegroop70 was sadly muted by the humming of some electrical device that was mercifully turned off before the second piece started and shows how this sort of music is to have an atmosphere of perfect silence to be appreciated.

I have always been mystified by the Chopin cello sonata. In the very few Chopins compositions that involve other instruments apart from the piano, I find the writing ‘for the other instrument’ disconcertingly unsophisticated, almost childlike; the practically rough orchestral score of the two piano concertos being a case in point.

Although beautifully crafted, the PianoTrioinGMinorop8 is simply not up to scratch to be a repertoire favourite while the Cello Sonata has survived as such by the skin of its teeth, although I infinitely prefer the PolonaiseBrillante that was performed by Dindo and Cattarossi as a very welcome encore.

This piece, which was written for Prince Anton Radziwill, an amateur cellist, is pure Chopiniana in both the piano score and the very delicate and cellistically superior cello one.

I feel it more compositionally flawless than the sonata but then, that is neither here nor there , as the strength of the sonata lies in its terrific slow movement, the lovely Largo that wears its heart on its sleeve in no uncertain terms and is pure unadulterated Chopin with an almost human voice and dazzling pianistic embroidery thrown in; sheer magic actually, in a performance that kept us literally spellbound.