Music / ANU – Cello & period instruments Recital, Zoltán Szabo, cello, and Nicholas Kennedy, piano, at Larry Sitsky Recital Room August 26. Reviewed by LEN POWER

Zoltán Szabo, cello, and Nicholas Kennedy, piano, presented a recital featuring rare instruments from the ANU Historical Keyboard Collection. This opportunity to experience a historically informed performance on period instruments was not to be missed.

Both performers are on the faculty of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and provided down-to-earth, humorous and fascinating explanations about the instruments they were playing, as well as a description of the differences in sound we would hear.

Zoltán Szabó is a cellist and musicologist, educated in Budapest (Hungary) and Cincinnati (USA). He has also performed extensively at festivals and recitals in Europe, America and throughout Australia.

Nicholas Kennedy has performed throughout Australia and internationally as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist. He is also an active researcher specialising in nineteenth-century piano music and the relationship between analysis and performance.

The program commenced with Beethoven’s G minor cello sonata Op. 5 No. 2, using a period cello with gut strings and the University’s replica of an 1819 Graf fortepiano by Paul McNulty. The difference in tone of both instruments was immediately apparent and added a highly pleasing dimension to their fine performance of this
dramatic sonata.

The performers explained that expressive devices informed by past writings and old recordings were also employed during their playing, bringing the performance as close as possible to the sound of the period in which it was written.

The Sonata in G minor for cello and piano Op. 19 by Rachmaninoff was the second work on the program. It was played using a modern cello and a 1911 Blüthner piano, an instrument very similar to the Blüthner owned by Rachmaninoff himself. Their performance brought out all the emotion in the work and the sublime melodies in the third movement were a particular highlight of this excellent performance.

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