Young Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina and French pianist Cédric Tiberghien treated a packed Wigmore Hall to a night of flair on Tuesday, in an evening that flitted stylishly between their homelands. Beginning with Alexandre Tharaud’s fiery reimagining of Marin Marais’ Couplets de folies, originally composed for the viola da gamba in 1701, Kobekina glided with mastery from the delicate, unfussy first section into the dance-like rousing staccato. This rendition of Marais is a far cry from the French court, with plenty of fire – which suits Kobekina, who visibly relished both being deft in speedier sections and majestic in the more dirge-like moments.
Only very occasionally was there a slight imbalance between the two performers. At times throughout the concert Tiberghien was a little too respectful of the cello and at others Kobekina’s more dramatic bass notes were overwhelmed by the piano. Yet the two had a palpable musical chemistry, barely needing to look at each other and clearly enjoying the occasion.
Marais was followed by a piece composed for Kobekina in 2012 by her father Vladimir Kobekin, himself prominent on the Russian music scene. The Town Romance was an opportunity for Kobekina and Tiberghien to show the emotional range of their instruments, from yearning to eerie to discordantly dramatic. Tiberghien’s reverberant use of the pedal was effective alongside the more intense, agitated notes on the cello, but never unwieldy. Kobekina’s melancholic cantilena intensified brilliantly to the warm lyricism at the end of the piece, with both technical control and emotional sensitivity.
The pair took on Nikolai Myaskovsky’s Cello Sonata no. 2 in A minor with zeal, excelling at the almost bucolic, measured lines of the opening Allegro moderato and Andante cantabile while revelling in sparse moments of raw power and crescendo. The Allegro con spirito saw Kobekina at her finest, moving nimbly from thunderous vigour to lightness, with precise, accurate motions and very little ornamentation.
Swelling through the romance of Debussy’s Cello Sonata in D minor, composed towards the end of the First World War and three years before his own death, Kobekina and Tiberghien once again showed their keen ability to change the atmosphere in Wigmore Hall. Barely-there piano notes in the Prologue took on a power that was greater than the sum of their parts, before the two instruments engaged in a more playful cat-and-mouse dance in the Serenade, with the cello engaged in disconcerting slides and more muscular phrases.
Finishing with the emotional turbulence of Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata in D minor, Kobekina’s cello almost sang the soaring lines and deep bass notes of the Allegro non troppo. Moving straight into the rushing frenzy of the Allegro, she was a frenetic joy to watch: totally focused, her entire upper body and face contorting with the musical excitements. She played the plaintive languor of the Largo with expression, her movements tight and controlled but giving way to more anguished growls.
Tiberghien’s playing occasionally overpowered her in her upper registers, but by the final Allegro the focus was switching seamlessly between the two. Kobekina displayed a powerful emotional range and a visible joy in her instrument, delighting the audience at Wigmore Hall alongside Tiberghien’s versatility and control and proving that she remains a young artist to watch.
