For the 5th time in the past eight days I went to Gozo, heat or no heat, long bus ride from home and crossing over to the Sister Isle. I keep being asked how I cope with it.

I do because I love going to hear good music. This time it was the current edition of the VIAF, which will close this evening. It is worth the trouble although on some rare occasions things are alleviated by the occasional kind lift I get.

It is worth the trouble because of the constellation of performers, local and from abroad many of whom are really dazzling stars of their art. It was exactly this that made me forget certain discomforts behind and ahead of me I was to be compensated by the superb performance of the above duo.

As their name implies, they are from Karlsruhe in south-western Germany. A duo of great experience, well-knit and balanced in a marvellous, mutual rapport which yielded a rich, musical harvest.

The first example was with the performance of Beethoven’s Seven Variations in E flat Major on a theme from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, WoO46. Beethoven was very adept at composing variations on themes by other composers such as Handel. Other “greats” including Brahms and Rakhmaninov, did the same. It is a kind of paying homage to a fellow composer. It takes skill to compose variations and skill of the performers to make them not just a mere mechanical exercise but an accomplished flow of different emotions. This the Karlsruher Duo accomplished. When I heard that mellow beautiful tone of the cello and the supportive sparkling piano, I knew I was in for a BIG treat. I had to control my impatience, knowing what was awaiting me much later in the programme.

This in itself was a greatly tantalising situation as the concert moved on with a number of “goodies” punctuating the evening. The first eagerly lapped up morsel was one of the dozens and dozens of songs without words which dotted Mendelssohn’s unfortunately short career. His Song without words in D Major Op. 109 is an Andante full of feeling which could not be fully and verbally expressed.

Schumann composed many Lieder full of every kind of emotion, state of mind, of everything around him. His Drei Fantasiestücke, Op.73 is so effusive with feeling that it seems that its three parts are but song struggling to emerge.

Well, the cello IS considered as being the instrument closest to the human voice. Ergo, this is not just a silly flight of fancy.

The pre-climactic work was an arrangement by Gaspar Cassadò of Liszt’s Liebestraum, Op. 62 N.3 (Con affetto, poco allegro). Soothing, seductive, warm and smooth, rippling piano and a singing cello, the dream was indeed well-projected.

Finally the cherry on the cake. César Franck’s Sonata in A Major for violin and piano completely conquered and overwhelmed when I first heard it at the Manoel Theatre more than 50 years ago. It became and is my paramount favourite work. It still holds me in its thrall.

While I still hold a performance of the original as the top ideal, the cello version, especially if it was the one by Jules Delsart, is certainly not to be disdained. It was the only one approved by Franck. The work is typical of Franck’s cyclic technique. Hints are thrown here and there as to what to expect. All finely and magnificently performed by both musicians. The piano is as important as the cello. Both parts are very difficult and success is only achieved if that were the case, and so it was. Supremely beautiful, all the way, carrying all away with it.

The audience reacted accordingly and an encore was conceded. This was a warm little Liebeslied, a love song by Anton Bruckner.

Albert George Storace.