News - Wigmore debut 2009

Wigmore Hall debut

January 2009 | James makes his Wigmore Hall playing the monumental Hungarian works for solo cello works by Ligeti and Kodaly. In a concert supported by the Park Lane Group, James received excellent critical praise.

“This Park Lane Group concert began with two works for unaccompanied cello. James Barralet’s choices were striking – two twentieth-century sonatas, both by Hungarians of great distinction. Right from the outset – a triple-stopped glissando – Barralet’s mastery of his instrument was evident, as well as his dedicated advocacy of its matchless depth.

György Ligeti wrote the first movement of his sonata as a music student in Budapest. His girlfriend had just left him – the pain of her rejection shows. The second movement was completed five years later. Barralet’s perceptive programme note speaks of the “turbulent momentum of this sometimes furious, sometimes taunting musical outburst.”

The sonata exhibits Ligeti’s prevalent modernism, together with keen awareness of his Middle European inheritance. He respects the courtly formality of Austrian dominance and the genial music-making of Hungarian peasantry through generations. With crystalline intelligence, he marshals his notes with tension and into structures integral to his personal make-up. Barralet understood all this with direct clarity, ensuring that his rich, dark instrument spoke the same precise yet emotion-tinged language.

Zoltán Kodály, a cellist himself, took Barralet still further into the art of evoking sounds of burnished, mellow resonance. Sturdily, and with absolute clarity of intent, Barralet took us through the imposing medley of techniques and styles that Kodály enmeshed into such a striking whole – the percussion, the drone, the hurdy-gurdy, the characteristic tones of the viola, the violin, the female voice, the folksong and the peasant dance. This was distinguished playing of an imposing composition.”

Classical Source

“Ligeti's early cello solo sonata is clearly influenced by Kodaly & Bartok; the second of the two movements was more individual, with its melody 'buried in an unstoppable torrent of notes' which James Barralet took in his stride. Kodaly's sonata, the first solo cello work of real significance since Bach's, has held its place in this repertoire, and was as absorbing and exciting as always. Barralet has a flair and commitment which makes for strong communication with his audience to which we supporters of PLG present responded warmly.”

Musical Pointers