Lunchtime Recital by Waikato Students.

This lunchtime recital celebrates the solo cello through three landmark works that showcase the instrument’s extraordinary expressive and technical range. 

The programme opens with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major, a work whose radiant simplicity and masterful design have secured its place among the most beloved works in the cello repertoire. Benjamin Britten’s Suite for Solo Cello No. 1, written for Mstislav Rostropovich, offers a compelling twentieth-century counterpart: inventive, searching, and richly varied in colour and character. The recital concludes with the Paganini Variations by Hans Bottermund, presented in the celebrated arrangement by János Starker—a dazzling display of virtuosity inspired by Paganini’s legendary brilliance. 

Together, these works illuminate the remarkable breadth of the solo cello repertoire, from Bach’s poised elegance and contrapuntal ingenuity to Britten’s distinctive modern voice and the exhilarating technical fireworks of the virtuoso tradition.