At Saturday night’s Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts Williams Hall duo-recital with pianist Adria Ye, the very Byronic cellist Leland Ko, his eyes often peering heavenwards toward his muse, dispatched all technical challenges with certitude, producing a juicy, room-filling and well-tuned tone at every pitch and dynamic, excelling both in poetic longing and dramatic outbursts. The power and sensitivity of his bow arm matched his ranging flights of notes. His Baroque instrument projected abundant tone and color—enough to excite the resonances of the largest hall. Though he presided heroically, his work also revealed a sensitive chamber player, listening to his colleague and interacting with her. Indeed, Ko expressed much fondness for his three-year collaboration with Ye and proudly admitted that he has learned much from her. Throughout the evening Ye phrased and nuanced with micro control of articulation, dynamics color, and rubato, all to convincing musical effect. She positioned and wrapped each note in a perfectly spun silken chrysalis, alert both to phrases and longer arcs. And Ko seemed to be listening to her with as much pleasure as we experienced, but with his head in the open piano, he sometimes seemed unable to judge balance of power.

Beginning with the concert opener, Beethoven’s Grand Sonata for Piano with the accompaniment of the Cello No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 5 No. 2, a not-always wanted dominance of the big toned and irresistibly soulful cello somewhat dashed our expectations for equality of voices. And it was as much about trading assertiveness as it was about the relative volume of the instruments (which we could only judge from a front row seat in which the cello’s f holes beamed directly to us). There were many times when Ye might have considered exclaiming with randy raucousness rather than charming with subtlety. Beethoven expects strong contrasts with lots of sfzs and accents.  

Ko’s notes (albeit silent on the role of the piano) charmed with the insouciance of on-stage palaver:

The first movement, with its hefty introduction and relentless main body, is full of drama (perhaps more like a storm rather than a cosmic statement about the human condition), while the second is a romp, full of joy and humor (and perhaps unnecessary pomposity — how I imagine Beethoven felt when he had to dress up in a wig around those Viennese aristocrats!).

The introduction commenced with magical serenity—a deep well of timeless emotion—with a gorgeous ppp on the piano which never wilted. Ko sang out the big tune with elegant energy, alternating with impeccably steady, almost ghost-like pianissimos. The duo’s very flexible tempos invariably breathed collectively. We smiled with delight at Ye’s exultantly fast and even runs and how she properly began the second movement as the dominant dance partner. Ko radiated ease and engagement.

Fauré’s late and somewhat diffident Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 109 can be a hard sell. Ko wrote:

And in his late music in general, are the many “wrong-sounding” notes and almost proto-jazz harmonies because of his impaired hearing or because it was the only way to express where life had taken him? Does the unchanging flow of time and rhythm reflect how he felt time passing at the end of his life? Is the music kind and gentle above all else because Fauré himself was those very things?

We heard in the opening Allegro, a spirited, if carefully considered debate between intellectuals, yet Ko sealed a moment with an astonishing portamento kiss. The Andante, a doleful aria for the cello, found the piano sounding more like a celesta as the pair reveled in art-song-prayer. And what great pathos the cello brought in its diminuendo to ravishing quietude. In the Finale — Allegro commodo, Ko often bowed from near the fingerboard, producing a nasal tone which Ye seemingly imitated.

Quoting the Hensel Project, since Ko’s notes omitted reference to Nadia Boulanger’s Trois Pièces from 1911 (transcribed for cello and piano in 1914):

The first movement is dreamy and distant, with a beautiful cello melody over a harmonically static, gently rocking piano accompaniment.  Despite a passionate central section, it returns to its opening mood before apparently floating into mid-air [wonderful twisting phrases and intersecting line with Ye the very outgoing partner].   The second piece has the simplicity of a folk song, an impression strengthened by the fact it is in the Aeolian mode [a Gallic Gregorian chant with ringing bells]. The third piece in C-sharp minor, by contrast, is lively and energetic.  Potter writes that it is reminiscent of Poulenc and compares it to sister Lili’s writing for cello. It is the most balanced between the two instruments of the set and features a central section in 5/4 before returning to the opening material and ending with a flourish. [jazzy and pointillistic, a tour de force for the energetic piano] [FLE]

We admired the duo’s irresistibly artful (almost godlike), super-romantic take on Schumann’s Intermezzo, from the famously collaborative F-A-E Sonata, and we had no objection to experiencing it an octave lower than originally written for violin.

Felix Mendelssohn wrote his Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano in B-flat Major, Op. 45 in 1838 at the age of 28 — which perhaps explains its youthful joy, but doesn’t account for my bias towards Mendelssohn as one of my favorite encoders of exuberance and welling-of-the-heart in Western classical music…. Mendelssohn manages to come up with brand new melodies that somehow already feel like old friends. (Leland Ko).

The Cello Sonata in B-flat major starts with a long line played in octaves between the cello and both hands of the keyboard. It is almost austere in its purity, more like a reservoir of intervals than a true melody. At the end of the string of notes, the piano plays a little rhythmic hook, a snappy, dotted figure. From this playful hint, Mendelssohn builds the ebullient first movement of his sonata [Ko and Ye endowed the wonderfully convoluting lines with patrician dignity and refinement; Ye postured with elegance and Ko asserted with libidinous pleading]. The Andante is a graceful, minor-key dance based on that same dotted figure. [academic and restrained and then a divine aria telegraphed though Ko’s heaven-searching eyes—a song without words for the piano over cello pizzes] For the finale, Mendelssohn returns to the austere shape from the opening of the piece, but he harmonizes it and gives it a new rhythmic character so that it becomes a sweet, nostalgic ditty. We hear this melody again and again over the course of the movement, as if the entire work has served to prepare the listener for this tune, before the music subsides in quiet cascades in the piano [another song without words yielded to realms of joy as the rhapsodic piano and soulful cello dispensed beatific manna. It had all the exuberance of the Octet which Mendelssohn wrote at the age of 16]. by Nicky Swett [FLE]

The well-earned encore, the first of Clara Schumann’s Op. 22 Three Romances, certainly romanced the receptive audience. Ko told us how this partnership had begun during Covid with a distanced performance of this subline effusion. Truly well-partnered, the colleagues evinced grand passion in their rewardingly engaged collaboration. 

Lee Eiseman is the publisher of the Intelligencer