Past event

22 March 2022

Sala Teatro

20:30

Gautier Capuçon, cello

Johann Sebastian Bach
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007
 
Henri Dutilleux
Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher for solo cello
 
Zoltán Kodály
Sonata for cello, Op. 8

The cellist Gautier Capuçon is coming back to Lugano to conclude his artistic residence interrupted in March 2020. The new programme enhances both his instrument and virtuoso skills. Listening to Bach's Cello Suites always leads the listener to wonder how it is possible to concentrate in a single instrument – foreign to soloist use before Bach – such quality and variety of technique and invention, instrumental play and soul, rationality and poetry. Henri Dutilleux's piece composed to celebrate Paul Sacher's 70th birthday and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovitch is not to be outdone. For over fifty years, Sacher was the soul and chief conductor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble that promoted and created numerous contemporary works. Zoltán Kodály was equally innovative. Along with his almost contemporary Béla Bartók, he was the most representative composer of Hungarian music of the past century, distinguishing himself through his passionate interest and love for authentic Hungarian folklore, which the gipsy-like "Hungarian" music of Liszt and Brahms had perverted.

In just a few years, Capuçon has become the spokesman for a style that combines tenderness and virtuosity, enhanced by the sonority – sometimes full-bodied, sometimes light - of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello. Having grown up within the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and trained with Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez and Claudio Abbado, Capuçon associates his commitments as a soloist with chamber music performances with leading artists such as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim and Lisa Batiashvili.