Two masters of light and shade, of fantasy and invention, of formidable technical skill and profound musicianship.

Such epithets can be as readily applied to cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and lutenist Thomas Dunford as to Marin Marais and JS Bach. Fortunately, all four were present during this most perfect of concerts, the first in Altstaedt and Dunford’s national tour for Musica Viva Australia.

Nicolas Altstaedt and Thomas Dunford. Photo © David Cox

The music: exquisite. The playing: exquisite. Though if one were pressed to say what made this concert uniquely special, it would be the unusually intense quality of attention, of listening, of giving oneself over entirely to silence as much as to sound, that was required, nay, demanded of one.

This was perhaps nowhere more exemplified than in Dunford’s arrangement for solo lute of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007. On one level, barely audible in the Winthrop Hall. On another, like peals of distant thunder. How did Dunford accomplish this? Largely through the power of suggestion. And an exciting, improvisatory style of playing so compelling that one leant forward,...