“There are pairings that are so beautiful that you cannot imagine them – just wish for them”, wrote the Tagesspiegel of Monday’s concert in Berlin, to which the Berliner Zeitung added “The large hall of the Philharmonic is busy this evening and not just to the last permanent seat. Chairs have also been added on the stage in a semicircle pulling the audience closer to the musicians. The pianist Hélène Grimaud and cellist Sol Gabetta are anything but a long-standing experienced chamber music duo. Their joint concert, like their recently released CD of the same programme, has something of an aura of a summit meeting between two individuals whose paths have at last intersected.”

And of the performance? “Just ravishing”, wrote the Berliner Zeitung of Hélène Grimaud and Sol Gabetta’s performance of the Shostakovich Sonata. Meanwhile Kultur Radio commented: “Since the release of the CD a lot has changed. There was still more of a juxtaposition as a common home, but since they have played this program again in concert more recently, they have also set joint priorities in their interpretation.”

The performance closed with a quiet and moving piece by Ernst Bloch and the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s cello sonata as encores, and Kultur Radio exclaimed “The music was just there, it breathed, there were no extravagances necessary. The remarkable thing: This immediately transferred to the audience. Suddenly an attentive silence and tension was above the hall.”

The concert was streamed live to online audiences in Germany and France on ARTE Live Web (the recorded webcast is now available to view online for 3 months).

Hélène Grimaud and Sol Gabetta continue the tour with performances in Hamburg tonight, Bremen tomorrow and Bern on Friday.