Not to be missed

By cliveoconnell on August 14, 2026

NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT & THOMAS DUNFORD

Musica Viva Australia

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Tuesday August 11, 2026

Nicolas Altstaedt & Thomas Dunford

With a few exceptions, this proved to be an unusually focused program, centring on two of Bach’s cello suites and extracts from the considerable output of Marais with a soupcon of his competitor Forqueray. Nicolas Altstaedt and Thomas Dunford worked very well in their cogent cello-theorbo duet combination at throughout this entertainment where the emphasis fell on the cello imitating Marais’ viol, while Dunford made a splendid showing as artist-in-support while seizing his chances for flamboyance with a will. The only odd moments came with a rendition of Part‘s pointedly aimless Spiegel im Spiegel invention of 1978 which, thanks to Dunford’s ability to provide link passages, and the content of both pieces, merged seamlessly into the slow movement of Duparc’s 1867 A minor Cello Sonata: proof once again that King Solomon (possibly) was right when he noted that there was nothing new under the sun.

But that’s not quite right, is it? I’ve found three different headings for the central pages of Duparc’s score. In this night’s program notes it’s listed as a Lento; a PDF score online has it headed as a Largo; on an Instagram page from Altstaedt, he plays the piece with Dunford under the headings of both Lento and Lamento. Steven Isserlis performs it on a Proustian disc as Lamento. Whatever the truth of the matter, Part and Duparc made a fine pairing but I can’t believe that they added up to the combined duration of eighteen minutes, as set out in the night’s schedule.

The six Marais pieces included two scores that have become familiar to us, thanks to programs by native and visiting lutenists. Wrapping up the evening’s first half was Les Folies d’Espagne which, in its original shape, featured the famous La Folia tune and 31 variations, from the 1701 Pieces de Viole Livre II. Here, Dunford gave exemplary service as support for Altstaedt’s wildly disparate modes of attack and dynamic, the whole carried out with exemplary verve and empathy from both executants. Contrary to expectations (and schooled by many another set of Folias-plus on harpsichord, organ, strings, etc.), this reading proved invigorating, perhaps due to the executants’ essays at souping-up the original with rasping attack-strokes, accelerandi and plenty of what passes for fortissimo on these two instruments.

Another well-known Marais product is Les Voix humaines, also from the 1701 collection and a gem of soft utterance and melodic grace. In particular, the duo made a moving experience of this brevity’s ending, their output reduced to near-whispers at the cadence. In spite of the overwhelming mastery of the Bach works, I thought the entertainment reached its high-point in this ornate but deeply expressive page-worth of music-making.

Without doubt, we all enjoyed the opening gambit of placing Marais’ La Reveuse (from Book IV of 1717) alongside Forqueray’s La Leclair: a juxtaposition of both composers in contrasting moods – well, in their prevailing moods, most of the time, it would seem. It introduced Altstaedt’s variation in timbre and dynamic inside both pieces as well as showing Dunford’s talent at glittering cascades of chords and contributions of contrapuntal interplay, particularly in the vivid flamboyance of those suggestions of the great violinist in full flight.

The original scheme was to insert Feste champetre, also from Marais’ Book IV, at the halfway point of Dunford’s transcription of the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G major (just as an odd point of order, was this transposed down a fifth? It sounded that way to me but, not having perfect pitch, the perception came about (probably) through a fault in my hearing). I can’t imagine what brain fade led to that idea as the piece’s studied bucolicism would sit uncomfortably between Bach’s courante and sarabande in most respects. Fortunately some kind of sense prevailed and we heard the Marais after the uninterrupted suite, in alliance with Les Folies d’Espagne where it sat quite happily.

In their final Marais bracket at night’s end, following Les Voix humaines Altstaedt and Dunford added the Grand Ballet from Book III of 1711 and Book IV’s Le Tourbillon. The first of these turned into a tremolo-rich exercise from Altstaedt but Dunford’s part proved more interesting for its sparkling support of a more deliberate cello line. Altstaedt enjoyed his own display in the final imitation of a whirlwind that brought the program to a feisty conclusion. But what I carried away from this last Marais bracket was the responsiveness of both musicians to each other’s output – their dynamic give and take, and their communal flurries into and out of faster speeds.

All honour to Marais and (to a lesser extent) Forqueray, Duparc and Part but the twin pillars of the Bach suites dominated the program’s two halves. We have precedents galore for Bach transcriptions; not exactly limited to but definitely associated in my lifetime with Segovia who mined the violin sonatas and partitas for his own instrument. He certainly arranged the arpeggio-rich Prelude and two other dances from the Suite in G Major, and Dunford has carried the task forward by setting the other movements. Despite the mastery involved, a basic problem still obtains: a lute can handle chords exceptionally well, but it can’t legato, to coin a verb. So the suite takes on a completely different sound character.

If you can swallow that, and everybody in the Murdoch Hall seemed to be onside, then Dunford’s exhibition was brilliant: packed with nuance, loyal to the original, clean in shape and articulation. My only real question lies with the idea of differentiation. It was clear when the Prelude ended and the Allemande began but the mode of attack failed to register; ditto with the Menuets and Gigue. For sure, Dunford is able to generate energetic initial strokes but he seemed to keep most of these for his Marais. As when we saw Segiovia here at the Town Hall back in the 1960s, you could admire the technical craft at work as long as you repressed your memories of the original.

Altstaedt opened the program’s second half with the Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor which proved to be a remarkable reading. Rather than confront us with the bull-cello approach so familiar from other players, he gave us the Prelude without digging into his instrument’s bass C notes that come up so often in the first nine bars. The Allemande proved a model of piano grace, with a startling flexibility given to the tempo, while the following Courante made a splendid contrast in its aggressive outline of the chromatic slithering between bars 13 and 16.

Individuality was the highlight of Altstaedt’s Sarabande reading, including a very soft repeat of the first eight bars. But this search for quiet outlines and statements could be noted in much of the suite’s latter half, in particular an extraordinary muffled account of Gavotte II‘s triplet orgy. The process reached a telling point when the Gavottes merged into the Gigue and we moved into a subfusc landscape where contours almost disappeared in the player’s restlessly soft dynamic and we were (well, I was) transfixed by the music’s eventual disappearance on that final bottom C – a moment of rarely achieved magic.

Another element that disposed this near-sold out house to benevolence towards these musicians was their obvious friendship and affection for each other. It’s something you come across rarely: to see players embracing each other without awkwardness or affectation, but simply happy in their work, confident in each other, and committed to enriching their listeners with some information and many memorable displays of expertise and interpretative insight. They perform tomorrow night in Newcastle, on Monday in Brisbane and conclude their tour in Adelaide on Tuesday; it’s doubtful that you’ll see a more rewarding pair of musicians at work for a long time.