On Monday night I was transported back three decades, when celebrity recitals with near-capacity audiences were not a rarity.
Raphael Wallfisch and Michael Houstoun's uncompromising programme took us to the heart of the great repertoire for cello and piano, spanning from Schumann's Five Pieces in Folk Style to
Brahms' towering Second Sonata.
Schumann's Opus 102 is more than just a collection of five miniatures.
If Schumann himself cultivated three personalities, then this work catches five.
Wallfisch illuminated them all, from the teasing rubato of the first, true to the composer's direction of "mit humor", to the rough-hewn march of the last.
His double-stops in the third were as full and rich as Schumann might have ever hoped for.
Houstoun excelled in a piano part that, as so often happens with Schumann, does not release its secrets easily.
Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is loveable as only Schubert can be.
While Wallfisch's heartfelt song in the Adagio lingers in the memory,it was also fascinating to hear the care with which the cellist made each return of the main theme sound anew in the first movement, and the utter naturalness of the Finale.
If the two men's partnership was superb in Schubert, it was delectable in Debussy. The Frenchman's Sonata was inspired by commedia dell'arte, and Wallfisch's Pierrot introduced himself as a supreme orator.
The Serenade followed, with an unexpected bitterness in its bars, Bartokian pizzicatos flying from the cello.
At one point the totally involved Wallfisch slumped in his chair like the disillusioned Pierrot himself.
For the first time in the evening, Wallfisch used a score for Brahms' F major sonata.
A week ago the cellist had spoken to me of the work as a symphony that didn't eventuate.
Symphonic it was, opening with massive bow-strokes and huge, resonant chords in the Development.
Yet, for all the strength, there were also quieter reflections to be whispered in the Adagio affetuoso.
Two generous encores summarised the many moods of the evening, as Wallfisch and Houstoun stayed with Brahms.
First was a deliciously relaxed version of the composer's most popular Hungarian Dance, and a transcription of Wie Melodien Zieht Es Mir proved to be, literally and figuratively, the last word in the purest of lyricism.
