International Music Festival at the Auckland Town Hall

By HEATH LEES

Anyone described as "the best cellist since Jacqueline du Pre" has a lot to live up to. And when the speaker is the mighty Rostropovich, the prospect is exciting.

Maria Kliegel was in great form during last year's festival, but Tuesday's concert was something else.

Partnered by pianist Nina Tichman, she produced playing of the highest standard, yet made it seem merely a matter of ease and enjoyment.

Apart from her abundant musicianship (the music stand was pushed to one side for most of the evening while she played from heart and memory) Kliegel has a left hand that cellists would die for, with a thumb that both anchors and floats, and an instant and unerring sense of position.

Couple that to the pure poetry of her bowing arm, a three-centuries-old cello that clearly loves her, and a gifted partner at the piano, and all the ingredients for spectacular music-making are there.

Beethoven's influence was strong in the programme and his massive scowl glowered down from the spotlit bust on stage.

But his variations on a theme from Mozart's Magic Flute were relatively light-hearted, even if these two performers never for a moment suggested salon entertainment.

A special kind of symbiosis developed between cello and piano during Schubert's Arpeggione sonata, and by the final movement the two performers, sounding as one, made the familiar music seem enchantingly new, with pinpoint, spine-tingling harmonics at the end from Kliegel's cello.

After a full-bodied Song Without Words from Mendelssohn, served with tangy sauce and a touch of sentiment, the two performers, now in full flight, turned to Beethoven's Op.69 sonata in A major.

Following an intelligently shaped and dramatic first movement, the violent syncopations of the Scherzo were like electric shocks.

Beethoven almost ignores the slow movement, and the tiny Andante slid magically into a finale that risked everything on a daredevil tempo, but never faltered for a second.

A trick of the light, no doubt, but you would swear Beethoven's scowl had disappeared.