Cellist Laura van der Heijden was last year’s recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society instrumentalist award, consolidating in style her BBC Young Musician win in 2012, when she was just 16. As a shining role model to musicians of her generation, her collaboration with the young professional talent of Sinfonia Cymru – here in string ensemble mode and on a short Welsh tour – was always going to be inspiring.
Van der Heijden had assembled an unusual mix of music, opening with a series of pieces associated with the stuff of fairytale by way of prelude to the Cello Concerto by Dobrinka Tabakova. From Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Les Démons – plus foot-stamps and knee slapping for percussive effect – the sequence moved seamlessly through Grace Williams, Caroline Shaw, Hildegard von Bingen and Pablo Casals to Maurice Ravel in a persuasive and atmospheric flow. Disarmingly, Van der Heijden had placed herself not out front but in the position of principal cello; the quiet authority of her gestures and an easy rapport with Sinfonia Cymru’s leader Haim Choi, found her occasional solo lines – as in Casals’ Song of the Birds – emerging with effortless grace.
Taking centre stage for the Tabakova concerto, Van der Heijden moved up a gear, forceful in the highly rhythmic pulsing of the first movement, entitled Turbulent, and, in the central movement, Longing, realising the lyrical intensity of its slow burn. Tabakova sees her concerto as one long arc and, in the finale, Radiant, soloist and ensemble succeeded in bringing a sense of heightened sensibilities, with the now fiery cello writing showing Van der Heijden at her virtuosic best.
In the second half, a sequence of folk-inflected compositions progressed towards a performance of Bartók’s Divertimento for Strings. Knowing that this work was completed just days before the onset of the second world war gave it a chillingly contemporary feel, muted strings conveying a deep anguish in the Molto Adagio. It was in the eloquent complexity of Bartók’s writing that Sinfonia Cymru came into its own, with incisive and expressive playing and, particularly in the moments of real emotional urgency, a vibrancy reflecting well on the success of the imaginative partnership with Van der Heijden.
• On BBC Radio 3 in Concert on 18 March.
