Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Sol Gabetta - Sol & Pat - Limelight

4.5*

Sol & Pat is a duo recital re-cast as a jugglers-on-a-high-wire circus act, with a dash of clowning adding colour to the excitement. It’s the product of two distinctive instrumental voices: the ever-quirky Kopatchinskaja, fresh from her Pierrot Lunaire, as electric as it was exotic, and Gabetta, a cellist who has developed her own distinctive style and here allows it full exuberant reign.

Quixotic, though it is, Sol & Pat is also a vivid display of fireworks and finesse from a crisply recorded duo keenly responsive to each other. Would that all duo performances had this same balance of acumen and adrenaline.