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Concertgoers were treated to a captivating opportunity to travel through time and space at Harpa’s Sunday Classics series a fortnight ago. The tour was curated by cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir and pianist Antoine Préat, with the assistance of cellist Steiney Sigurðardóttir to start them on their way.

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Italy’s Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805), in addition to being one of the most popular composers of his time, was also a cello virtuoso, so it should come as no surprise that he left a multitude of works for the instrument. Among them is the Sonata in G Major (G. 15), one of several dozen cello pieces he wrote. It is an early work from Boccherini’s oeuvre, and Geirþrúður Anna and Steiney played it skillfully. They were well attuned to each other, and their performance was confident and secure throughout. The interpretation was dynamic and the phrases well shaped (with suitably sparing use of vibrato), and while the sonata is perhaps not a watershed work, it was very pleasing to hear.

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The next port of call was Germany and a piece by Robert Schumann (1810–1856), who ranks among the giants of the Romantic period. He wrote this short chamber work, Adagio and Allegro (op. 70) for horn and piano, in 1849, relatively late in his career, but noted in the printed version of the score that the horn could be swapped out for either cello or violin. In this rendering of the cello arrangement, it was obvious from the start that Romanticism would carry the day. Geirþrúður Anna’s tone was rich and lush, and she and pianist Antoine Préat were beautifully synchronized with one another. Here Geirþrúður Anna used much more vibrato and crafted long, flowing musical phrases. Her superb performance of the introductory Adagio was highly nuanced. The same can be said of the Allegro, and Geirþrúður Anna’s playing showed beyond doubt that the cello, which perhaps resembles the human voice more closely than any other instrument, offers an endless palette of colors.

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The final work on the first half of the program was by French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918), who wrote his Sonata for Cello and Piano in d minor (L. 144/135) in 1915, plagued by failing health. The sonata is a short, dreamy piece in three movements. It was here that the balance between cello and piano could have been a tad better, as the piano tended to dominate at times. But the interpretation was extraordinarily musical, and Geirþrúður Anna’s tone production was marvelous, both in highly sensitive entrances and in more fiery and intense sections.

After the intermission, the journey turned eastwards, stopping first in Poland. Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) was not only one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, he was also an outstanding conductor. His one-movement Grave (or Metamorphoses), which dates from 1981, opens in the cello’s low register, with an unaccompanied passage that returns at the very end of the piece. The music gradually gains fervor, peaking in drama and intensity at around the midpoint. Again, the piano had a slight tendency to overbalance the cello in places, but Geirþrúður Anna compensated for it somewhat with powerful bow technique. Nevertheless, the duo played together splendidly in this work as in others on the program, allowing phrases to breathe and creating well-crafted musical lines.

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The final destination on the day’s peregrinations was the Soviet Union. Sergei Prokofiev’s (1891–1953) Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major (op. 119) is a kaleidoscope of contrasts that dates from 1949, very late in the composer’s career. Shortly before then, Prokofiev had been denounced and performances of some of his works banned by the Soviet authorities after Andrei Zhdanov, one of Stalin’s chief propagandists, had been tasked with quashing formalism in music. Prokofiev kept composing, however, writing the Cello Sonata for Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered it in Moscow with pianist Sviatoslav Richter. The dramatic opening movement (Andante grave – Moderato animato) provides a striking contrast to the playful second movement (Moderato), and the humor continues into the third (Allegro ma non troppo). Geirþrúður Anna and Antoine Préat’s performance had both breadth and depth. They deftly drew forth the contrasts in the piece, in dynamics and rhythm alike, and their tone production was excellent throughout. Their interpretation was vibrant and the phrases clear and refreshingly well-defined, although never at the expense of the overall structure.

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After all of the drama, the encore provided an excellent digestif in the form of a work by Chopin, an enormously prolific composer of instrumental “arias.” It was therefore fitting that both the cello and the piano “sang” in the Largo from his Cello Sonata.

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The European Grand Tour was a delightful experience, and Geirþrúður Anna and Antoine Préat (assisted by Steiney Sigurðardóttir) traveled far and wide on their journey. They were successful in evoking the distinct character of each stop along the way, which is no small feat. Their performance on this recital was tremendously musical and glittered with technical mastery, and I hope we will hear more from them in the future.