Chorale Prelude: Christus, der uns selig macht - Bach

Suite No.1 in G - Bach

Sacred Song: Selig!wer an Jesum denkt - Bach

Suite No. 2 in D minor - Bach

Sacred Song: Mein Jesu! - Bach

Suite No.3 in C - Bach

St Patrick's Cathedral is not an ideal place to hold a recital of secular music, though some might claim that none of Bach's music would come under that heading. The Suites of dances for unaccompanied cello have no sacred implications that I can see and depend for a lot of their effect on clarity and rapidity of enunciation. Such qualities are far to seek in the echoing vaults of the cathedral.

In the Chorale Prelude, the very massiveness of the sound was an experience in itself: the listener, like a swimmer, fights for stability in the successive waves of music. Equally impressive were the opening bow strokes of each movement of the cello suites, but as one note blurred into another, as in a piano when the sustaining pedal is kept depressed, it was difficult to detect where the music was travelling, in spite of Arun Rao's nimble articulation.

It was only in the slow Sarabandes that justice was done to the performer's skills and his fluid playing could reach the listener without excessive distortion.

The two sacred songs, sung by Peter Guilding (Blessed, he who thinks on Jesus) and Shane O'Shea (Jesus Mine), both slow threnodies, were suitable cathedral music. They were slow, and the resonance imparted a rich bloom to the voices which partly made up for the less than perfect synchronisation of voice and organ. One had of course to guess at the spiritual context of the words, but maybe it was all in the music's plangent lines.