Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin: Kodály– Sonata for Solo Cello Op 8
There was no great work for unaccompanied cello for nearly 200 years after Bach’s Solo Suites of the early 1720s. Then, around the first World War, pieces by the likes of Reger and Hindemith began to appear. But the first great one was the Sonata Op 8 by Kodály, written in 1915 and first performed three years later.
And it’s a jewel. Over the course of its three movements it combines various qualities from his models – Bach for counterpoint, Brahms for harmonic richness – with the modernity of his own ideas and a background of folk and other musics.
Some of the extended techniques he used, as described in a spoken introduction by composer Kevin O’Connell, include retuning the two bottom strings, four-part chords, harmonics, playing on the bridge and fingerboard, and – perhaps making the greatest impact – left-hand pizzicato, creating a simultaneous accompaniment to the melody being bowed by the right.
London-born William Butt met these challenges head-on, notably in the fast, dancing finale, where ever-increasing technical demands arrived in waves. These he surmounted while at the same time unleashing with emphatic delivery the tension built up in the first two movements. These included the central Adagio, where he held back somewhat from the special intimacy Kodály reserved for what was his favourite instrument.
But ultimately this is wartime music – anti-war music – with pointers such as old wartime folk songs and the Austro-Hungarian army bugle call to retreat. The piece’s emotional range spans anger, despair and hope, all of which came across in Butt’s intense performance.
