A concert by the cellist Gautier Capuçon is always an event. A moment of spontaneous happiness. An immersion into sound worlds of great fascination and imagination.

This is not only because of his technique—whose near-perfected mastery hardly needs to be emphasized anymore—but because of his interpretative ability, the fruit of a personality that contains within it every seed of great musical individuality. And that is what distinguishes an excellent performer from a fully rounded artist. It ensures for the listener that recurring surprise of truly hearing “music,” not merely a torrent of notes, however flawlessly executed. His figure, so intensely vital, seems to take possession of every note. Of every melodic line.

At the Teatro Ponchielli, for the Concert Season, he appeared accompanied by the excellent and very young pianist Mirabelle Kajenjeri.

He presented a program in his own image and likeness—reflecting the colors of his immense chromatic palette of sounds, of emotions, of infinite technical and interpretative capacity.

Beginning with Claude Debussy and his Sonata No. 1 in D minor for Cello and Piano, L 144: a perfect synthesis of the French composer’s style, where elements of deep lyricism suddenly mingle with fragments in which modernity becomes a liberating force and where song transforms itself—twists, deconstructs, and rebounds thematic particles within the long, insistent pizzicato. It is precisely in this alternation of styles and such diverse sonic landscapes that Capuçon finds his ideal expressive realization.

Then the Sonata No. 2 in D major for Cello and Piano, Op. 58, MWV Q32 by Felix Mendelssohn, where the splendid echo of the first movement of the Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 returns—in its melodic freshness, in its deeply penetrating incisiveness, at times even “cantabile,” almost like the phrase of an aria. His interpretation was beautiful and at moments dazzling, to the point that he seemed almost to relish the applause after the first sweeping movement.

Then Robert Schumann with Phantasiestücke, Op. 73. Originally written for clarinet, the piece retains, even in its cello version, the intrinsic charm of Schumann’s writing—rich in chiaroscuro, in sudden changes of tempo, clinging to peaks of incredibly effective melodic invention. Here emerged the more enigmatic side of the French cellist.

The official program concluded with Johannes Brahms and another masterpiece of chamber music: the Sonata No. 2 in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 99. In its vast prairies of linguistic and emotional serenity—such as the Adagio affettuoso—the artist’s ability to treat the multifaceted nuances of his instrument’s registers with almost absolute perfection came to the fore. The upper register was crystalline; the lower register wonderfully warm.

Mirabelle Kajenjeri proved herself an interpreter fully worthy of her French colleague. Technically precise, perfectly attuned to Capuçon’s overflowing expressivity, yet also capable of asserting her own presence in the piano’s solo passages. She has a luminous career ahead of her.

Two encores, each more intense than the other: a piece from his Gaïa, and Le Cygne, the penultimate piece from Le Carnaval des animaux by Camille Saint-Saëns. Beautiful. Gentle, and solemn too—like a great white swan.

The Ponchielli, spellbound by such beauty. Many rounds of applause—a fitting tribute to a truly great musician.

Photo report by Francesco Sessa Ventura.