Pilgrim Cello at Lunchtime Live !

Pilgrim Cello, Portsmouth Cathedral, June 12

Kenneth Wilson is cycling round the 42 English cathedrals and playing his cello at nearly all of them, having carried it on the bike. The ride from Chichester, which was yesterday's appointment, would have been one of the least demanding which is not to say it comes easy. He is cellist, cyclist and poet, probably in that order but certainly multi-talented in such contrasting disciplines.

Having once upon a time been a long-distance cyclist myself, I'm aware that it affords the opportunity for some meditation, not necessarily on the theme of the Seven Last Words from the Cross but I thirst can have some profound resonance.

The sonorous fluency of the Prelude from Bach's Suite no. 2 led into the programme as explored by Haydn in various versions, James MacMillan most spectacularly and others before Kenneth whose way was to read the Biblical texts followed by his poems expanding from those lines and then with the Sarabandes from the Bach in between. Those are the slow movements with the gravitas of no. 3, the pared down desolation of no. 5 highlights, taking the least danceable parts of Bach's set of dance pieces for other purposes. Gillian Lever's paintings to accompany each piece were also on display to provide any amount of stimuli to meditate upon while I was further distracted by the tiny front chainring on the outrageous bike built for practicality rather than time trial speed.

As the poem on My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? says, it is,

Bleak, bleak. 

But, as in the Haydn, the MacMillan and the Bach not originally written with such themes in mind, as far as we know, it's not all so inconsolable. Bach, for one, is at least that artist who offers us the consolations of his sense and art above all, and anybody, else.

Kenneth's instrument is modern, carbon fibre and black and so visually different from traditional wooden cellos. It made a wonderful sound in Portsmouth's intimate St. Thomas Chapel, sometimes not immediately sounding to me like those I've heard before played by Yo-Yo Ma, Stephen Isserlis or Natalie Clein, to shamelessly namedrop a few favourite musicians. He assured me it is no different but I've not heard some of the effects he conjured from it in his Amazing Grace finale, both in the top register and the ground bass.

That finale was the masterstroke after the the last of the last words, going back to where Bach begins in the Prelude to Suite no. 1 by way of deliverance, salvation and what some of us might consider the only paradise there might be, the realm of 'art'.

I'd been looking forward to that date for a long time, an extraordinary undertaking and an act of devotion to many things - the cello, the bike, the poems and their profound meaning. Expectation puts a high tariff on an event like that and so to come away so impressed - mostly by the musicianship but obviously the cycling, too - made it something special we Lunchtime Live! faithful won't be forgetting.