Celebrity chamber music might not have the mass appeal or the manufactured peril of Celebrity Traitors, but something special often happens when soloists take a break from hawking a handful or two of concertos around the globe, sit down with some colleagues, and play together, often in repertoire which is new to them. There will be no shortage of glamour, and the best sort of crackling musical tension, at Cadogan Hall and Wigmore Hall in December, when Beare’s Chamber Music Festival of 2025 presents two evenings of Schubert, Dvořák, Enescu and more. On stage, the pianist Sunwook Kim joins a super-group of string musicians, including the cellist Kian Soltani.
The festival is part of a growing artistic programme produced by Beare’s Cultural Trust, an independent charity recently spun out from the core business of J & A Beare, which has been dealing in and repairing many of the world’s finest string instruments since the 19th century. Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell and Janine Jansen are among the many violinists to have visited the firm’s premises in central London, trying out innumerable examples of the work of Stradivari and Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, and entrusting their instruments to the firm’s team of luthiers and technicians.
Stradivari also made cellos – of which around 60 survive – and Soltani plays one of them, dated to 1694 and known as the ‘London, ex-Boccherini’ cello through the winding story of its provenance, which includes a connection back to the Italian cellist-composer Luigi Boccherini. In 2016, Soltani was playing in his Masters final at the Kronberg Academy in Germany, and in the audience was the managing director of Beare’s, Stephen Smith. Six years earlier, Smith founded the Beare’s International Violin Society, in order to find backers for young musicians of outstanding promise such as Soltani, who deserved, but could not otherwise afford, to play the works of the Cremonese masters such as Stradivari and ‘del Gesù’.
Like a high-performance car, such instruments can be tricky to handle. And over hours and days and years spent with each other, both the instrument and its caretaker evolve and adapt. In fact, Soltani says, “this is one of those Strad cellos that is relatively easy to play, and quite immediate in its response – and I have tried out quite a few others. But the sound has completely changed over the time I have known it.” The cello had gone through a period of being unplayed. “Five or six hours a day of digging into the instrument does something to it, to the wood. I already thought it was good when I got it, but it became really great, a year or so later. It opened up – both in terms of volume and tone colours.”
In that sense, the festival in December also presents a chance to hear a banquet of golden-age Cremonese instruments. There is the ‘Shumsky, Rode’ Strad of 1715, played by Jansen; the ‘Piatti’ Strad of 1717 played by the first violinist of the Ebène Quartet, Pierre Colombet; the sublime ‘Gibson’ viola (another Strad, from 1734) played by the Quartet’s violist, Marie Chilemme, and so on.
If the instruments themselves will be in harmony, what about the musicians? They cannot rehearse together for weeks beforehand after the fashion of an established ensemble. “There's no blueprint for any of this,” replies Soltani. “If you throw five people on an island, they might eat each other, or they might build a beautiful society together. You never know who you’re going to end up with in a group. And if somebody has zero social skills, then you’re screwed. It doesn't matter if the first violin has the leading voice, that person who's playing third viola can ruin it all.”
Soltani himself has his work cut out, learning one of the cello parts of the Octet by George Enescu. On the page, Enescu’s counterpoint and intricate form – four movements enfolded within a single, continuous, sonata-form structure lasting 40 minutes – presents an intimidating prospect. In the right hands, however, the arching melodies and pulsing energy of the piece can sweep an audience along with it. “I’m very excited,” says Soltani. “It’s a very complicated piece. By comparison, the Mendelssohn Octet almost sounds like pop music! And I will prepare in the knowledge that Janine has played it countless times, and I might be the only one in the group who's never played it. So I’ll try to really step up and not have anyone notice that it’s my first time.”
For Soltani, this preparation involves not only getting the notes under his fingers, but a sense of their place in the fast-moving context. “You have to build in layers of safety for yourself so that you don’t just sit there and count, but you know when to enter, musically speaking. I play from the cello part, but I do a lot of extra marking. I write in the viola line, the violin line, the voice that comes before me and the voice that comes after me. When am I the main voice? Am I the secondary voice?”
Come the rehearsal, continues Soltani, “we can speak about things that are actually in our hands: articulation, colours, phrasing, dynamics, character. There’s a lot you can do in two days if everyone shows up prepared. We’re all old friends, and I know that everyone is very gentle as a person and socially smart. And Janine is the most gentle of all, in fact: she will not try to be bossy or controlling. We all respect her so much, and we know that she is not only the leading voice – musically speaking – but she also has the most experience with all of these pieces. If something is really on my mind, I won’t hold back from saying it. But we are all good at following and not just reacting. She will lead with her energy and her presence. Often, she will not have to say anything. She will be playing, and it will be like we are eating from the palm of her hand. It isn’t always this way!”
Soltani has an old head on young shoulders, having grown up in a family of musicians, and having started the cello at the age of four. Even so, with decades of chamber music behind him, playing Mozart with Daniel and Michael Barenboim must have been a formative experience. “It was interesting!” replies Soltani. “We had the father, the son, and I was the Holy Ghost.” It’s hard to imagine that Barenboim senior didn’t lead, even when he wasn’t the leader on paper. “Daniel has a bunch of different personalities,” replies Soltani. “There is Daniel the conductor, the pianist, and then the… company at dinner – which is basically a comedian.”
Soltani has seen him in all these contexts, “and I have to say that Barenboim the pianist may be my favourite version of him. When you are a conductor standing in front of 60 people, you must have a certain authority. He knows he must lead them with clear announcements and clear words, and a certain discipline, and he gets the job done. When he's sitting at the piano, he almost reminds me of a child at play. And this playfulness comes out in such a beautiful way, especially in Mozart.”
Soltani thinks back to the experience of playing the piano trios, and then recording them for DG, mostly in single takes of complete movements. “He never dictated anything. Any sense of authority melted away. He would be playing and smiling and perhaps politely asking for something now and then. Most of the time, his suggestions would be musical: he would play with something like a look or a wink. And so I would nod back, with my cello. And Michael was in such a relaxed mood because it was his father at the piano. They were so used to each other’s musical ideas and sense of timing that they had nothing to speak about.”
Cellists are required to be especially adaptable, reflects Soltani. “It’s very rare that you are the leading guy. Most of the time, your role is that of a supporting character. So you must learn to be a supportive person when you play chamber music. The contrast between playing first violin in an ensemble and playing a concerto on a violin is actually smaller than playing chamber music is a cellist and playing a concerto. This is like night and day. You have to transform your role and your sound completely, but a good instrument should allow you to do all of these things.”
The bow, for the cellist, becomes an inflection point, a means of playing with a different accent. Soltani keeps a pair of bows in his case, by Dominique Peccatte and by François Tourte, each of them as much a master of their craft as Stradivari was of his. “I want to have one voice, that I can then change or manipulate however I need it – the way that singers are still themselves, whether they are singing Lieder or opera. It’s just different dialects, different languages. I’m speaking English to you now; later on, I'll speak German, but they are both coming out of my own mouth.”
The J & A Beare Chamber Music Festival takes place at Cadogan Hall on 16th December and Wigmore Hall on 17th December.
All profits from both concerts will go to the J & A Beare Cultural Trust, to fund scholarships for young musicians, courses and masterclasses.
See upcoming performance by Kian Soltani.
This article was sponsored by the J & A Beare Cultural Trust
