Steven Isserlis is a regular annual fixture on the Jacqueline Du Pré’s calendar, for which the people of Oxford should be very grateful. This year’s programme featured a running order of pieces by nineteenth-century composers linked by artistic, family and professional connections to each other, and also to the musicians for whom they composed their cello music: Dvořák, von Zemlinsky, Brahms and Bargiel.
Isserlis was accompanied on piano by Kirill Gerstein, whose discerning intelligence made for an intriguing pairing; while Gerstein was happy to take a supporting role, his musical curiosity was the perfect excuse for Isserlis to lead with playful flair, and an interpersonal language grew throughout the performance. The opening of Waldesruhe Op.68 no. 5 felt anguished, but through a mutual assertion the piece was brilliantly resolved, Isserlis holding the last note with sublime control, a spine-tingling closing remark. Von Zemlinsky’s Sonata in A Minor was sensual yet restrained, the organic, lyrical modes of expression exposing the masterful technique Isserlis possesses. This was juxtaposed in the programme against Brahms’ Sonata in E Minor to illustrate the new musical ideas intrinsic to Austro-German Romanticism of the end of the 19th Century; we followed our musicians through melancholic insecurity, drama, and passionate disquiet, finally being brought to a swelling close where the perfectly executed accord was such a relief after the dialogue in which the pianist and cellist appeared to be working against each other.
After the interval, Gerstein’s sensitivity, coupled with Isserlis’s poetic character, brought sincere warmth to Bargiel’s tripartite Adagio Op. 38, which is charged with ardent emotion. The programme notes proclaimed that Brahms’ Sonata in F Major required great strength and virtuosity from both players, and it was during the evening’s finale that it was made so clear how fortunate we were to witness Isserlis’s musicianship. His intelligent phrasing carried through the breadth of the four movements, and the periods of crisis, tenderness, symphony and tumult always found resolution in the lyricism which makes Isserlis one of the world’s most acclaimed cellists.
During a discussion about the performance I had with a friend afterwards, we agreed that seeing a brilliant musician play, even one as talented Steven Isserlis, should not bring with it expectations of an illusion or a pre-formed product, that it would be unfair to have a preconception that the musician is infallible and so necessarily will produce something matching his or her talents. This is to say that Isserlis’s flawless performance was telling of his love for the pieces he was playing, and evidence of his prodigious skill, and so to have the privilege of witnessing something so extraordinary being created, even if only for a moment, made the night feel very special. I cannot wait for Isserlis to return next year.