In some ways, it was the anti-Halloween – a quiet evening of piano and cello away from the ghosts and bangs of the season at Prague 10′s recently restored Vzlet theater.
But as it turned out, there were some dark sides to the melodies aired, and both musicians sought to bring a forgotten composer back from the dead, in a manner of speaking at least. 
Briton Hamish Milne and locally-produced virtuoso Jiří Bárta were so taken with the work of little-known Nikolai Medtner (1879 – 1951), they took leave from their instruments in the middle of the performance to give a bilingual appreciation of the Moscow-born composer (right).
The Medtner pieces performed certainly gave a brighter tone to the evening after the murky notes of Rubenstein, and offered a sharp contrast to the more rigid classical work by Rachmaninov that followed.
In all cases, no one was burnt by the display of musicianship by Milne and Bárta, who evidently have forged an intercultural understanding in the course of performances and recordings the pair have done together.
For some Strauss and Bruch as performed by the Kutná Hora Festival Band, be sure to catch the next concert in the series, Cesty Romantismu II, on Nov. 28.
Cesty Romantismu I (Romantic Journeys)
Oct. 31, Vzlet Theater
Hamish Milne – piano
Jiří Bárta – cello
Anton Rubinstein’s Sonata for cello and piano No. 1, Opus 18
Nikolai Medtner’s Piano Pieces
Sergei Rachmaninov’s Sonata for cello and piano in G minor, Opus 19
Comments are closed.