Clinical precision and titanic energy

Cello Sonata in F Op 5 No 1 - Beethoven

Cello Sonata Op 119 - Prokofiev

Adagio and Allegro Op 70 - Schumann

Cello Sonata in F Op 99 - Brahms

From the first notes of last Friday's recital in Killruddery it was plain that we were in the presence of two masters of their instruments and that this great Irish house would be hearing great music. It was as if the works played had been examined under a magnifying glass, each detail registered and calibrated and the whole recreated with clinical precision and titanic energy.

The strings of the cello throbbed with dark intensity and the keys of the piano triggered pistol-shots of sound; the attention of the audience was commanded rather than cajoled, even in the softer passages where the music, if no less highly strung, was presented with a more velvety touch.

It was in Brahms's Sonata in F that this approach was most rewarding. The two players, without appearing to yield to each other, maintained a perfect balance, no easy task in this work, and the conflict of titans became an alliance of heroes.

It might be thought that this grand heroism would have been equally suitable for Beethoven - did he not write an Eroica Symphony? - but even in an earlywork such as the F major Cello Sonata there is a contemplative side that goes counter to the epical gestures of much of the music; and the extrovert nature of the performance did not allow sufficient space for the moments of self-communion which should emerge subtly from the texture before the listener is aware of them.

Schumann's Adagio and Allegro (originally for horn and piano) would have benefited from lighter handling, but Prokofiev's mercurial Sonata, Op 119, dazzled in all its grotesquerie.