Music

James Ehnes/Steven Osborne

Cottier's Theatre, Glasgow

Michael Tumelty

Five stars

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we will have absolute unanimity among the capacity crowd that thronged into Cottier's Theatre on Wednesday night for the recital by Canadian violinist James Ehnes and pianist Steven Osborne. Their programme, consisting of the last Violin Sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms (numbers 10 and 3 respectively) was, structurally, a little masterpiece of planning.

I'm not sure I've heard the two works together in concert previously, but the glorious characterisations that these two great musicians, Ehnes and Osborne, produced from the sonatas created a perception of the two works as perfect complements to each other. Beethoven was unusually light of cast, smiling and as near avuncular as I imagine him capable of being; Brahms was wearing his natural garb of intensity and richly textured complexity with rare lightness, buoyancy and transparency, but with no loss of weight.

For sure, I cannot imagine them in better hands. We know both these players well in different contexts. Without understating the import of their greatness, there is a naturalistic, completely unpretentious quality to their performance and musicianship. They come on, down to earth, and do the business every single time; I've never heard either of them give a routine performance. And their playing of Brahms and Beethoven was top-drawer, musically and intellectually: completely stimulating and provocative in that, simply, it made you think again of the composers, their music and their intentions.

And I'll tell you this: I cannot remember the last time I saw so many musicians from the orchestras and the community at large attend a concert, on their own night off, to hear other musicians perform. Ehnes and Osborne: musicians' musicians.