Going to Romania with Matt Haimovitz

The members of UCCELLO (left to right) Amelia Jakobsson, Judith Manger and Sung Pyung Chu with Matt Haimovitz (far right) at Sanders Theatre, February 3.

Matt Haimovitz brought an ambitious program of (mostly) solo cello works to the Celebrity Series at Cambridge's Sanders Theatre on February 3, exploring his Romanian roots with music from or informed by the region that includes Transylvania.

Throughout the first half of the program, Haimovitz gave a thoughtful introduction to each work, adding at one point that he had last been in Sanders Theatre for a class (Haimovitz is a Harvard graduate, class of '96). Haimovitz took Michael Sandel's class entitled "Justice" as an undergraduate, Haimovitz told the audience, during which he went "from a conservative libertarian to a liberal socialist." The line drew applause from the nearly full house.

Composer David Sanford was in the audience and took a bow following Haimovitz's performance of his Seventh Avenue Kaddish. Since he had recently played the world premiere of Adrian Pop's Gordun elsewhere, Haimovitz described that work from the stage as "I hope, a Boston premiere."

The longest piece of the evening, Zoltan Kodaly's thorny Sonata for Cello Solo, Opus 8, from 1915, yielded the most furious music making and judging from audience reaction alone was the evening's tour de force. The cello threesome, UCCELLO, from McGill University, joined Haimovitz for the final two works on the regular program, including Led Zepplin's Kashmir arranged for four cellos (full program listing).

The evening began with an unannounced surprise performance of the Prelude to Bach's Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello, and the evening's lone encore was the Sarabande from the same Suite. Nice book ends.

Kevin Lowenthal reviewed the concert for The Boston Globe.