the solitude that embraces you

There is no experience equal to listening to Bach's Six Cello Suites. Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas made it happen in Alicante last October.

Many things have been said about this composition, —even Emil Cioran’s famous affirmation. But you have to be present, live, isolated among the audience, and share with the player the pain, the sweat, the difficulties of such supreme music as he travels through the movements, all of them the same, Suite after Suite. Although Gutiérrez Arenas made the music sound calm and ease, and I could feel embraced by that solitude: of the instrument, the player, the almost empty stage. Many years ago I was exposed to something very similar while listening to Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jesus live at a Pierre-Laurent Aimard recital. These experiences must be lived.

Gutiérrez Arenas played Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with our Adda Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago, and I was lucky enough to share the stage with him playing the brief celesta part; he’s here again now, thanks to the invaluable work of “Sociedad de Conciertos de Alicante". Hope you come back soon.