It has been an especially good season for special, one-night events for the CPO. Recently, a concert featured Canadian violinist James Ehnes, who played the Brahms violin concerto impressively and to a full house, replete with many encores. Last Friday night, it was the cello’s turn, with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma on hand to perform Elgar’s wistful, ruminative cello concerto, a performance that also drew a sold-out audience, with a standing ovation for both halves of the concert and the air of a gala throughout.

While the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma was the principal draw, the entire concert was greatly enjoyed, with audience response to the performance of Grieg’s Peer Gynt music equal to that of Ma. Completing the program was a fine Fantasy on a Theme of Beethoven (the main theme from the first movement of Beethoven’s first symphony) by Canadian composer Larysa Kuzmenko. This Fantasy was originally commissioned by the orchestra as a companion piece for a performance of the complete Beethoven symphonies several seasons ago. It too was very warmly received.

All works featured a strong lyrical element, the entire program containing melodies the audience could savour and taste. While there was also drama and excitement, it was, in the end, the power of song, of pure melody, that carried the evening and made it so enjoyable.

The Elgar concerto is far from a barn-storming piece, and it was its inward, poetic elements that drew a sensitive, highly refined performance from Ma. Even with the passage of years, Ma retains his special capacity to play scrupulously in tune and with an exquisite tone. In the powerful opening and final movement, there was strength as well as playfulness in the frisky parts.

Ma knows this concerto well, having recorded it many years ago, and it is his current touring concerto (Victoria and Vancouver are upcoming). This performance had all the command of a seasoned performer who knows what he is about in every bar and in the characterization of each movement. It was a performance of consummate mastery by a consummate master.

Ma is always generous as it concerns fellow performers, joining the orchestra in the performance of the Grieg Peer Gynt music as a section cellist. This created the context for a truly magical moment at the end of the program.

Conductor Rune Bergmann came to the side of the stage carrying what looked like a bukkehorn, a Norwegian folk instrument originally made from a sheep’s horn and played with a trumpet-type mouthpiece. After he played a haunting, short, folk-like song in the manner of Grieg, Ma then played the tune on his cello, and an arrangement for the entire orchestra followed this. Not only was it a special way to end a program that dealt largely with interior emotions, it was also a quick lesson on how folk music moves from the rural to the urban, from folk sounds to that of the symphonic.

The Peer Gynt music itself was not exactly that of the two familiar suites made by Grieg himself, but a compilation made by Bergmann. This included most of the familiar numbers and concluded with a rollicking performance of the well-known In the Hall of the Mountain King.

The orchestra has given fine accounts of this music on other occasions, but none finer than this. Bergmann was clearly in his element in the music of his native soil. As an added touch, the lighting person underlined the changing moods of the sharply characterized movements with different degrees and colours of lights – a slight multi-media colouring of the performance. For the audience, this certainly added to the performance.

The opening Beethoven Fantasy by Kuzmenko, who was in attendance, is, in terms of musical style, a throwback to roughly the time of Vaughan Williams or Holst. As a work of music, however, it is impressively well crafted and intelligently composed, the various clearly defined sections each expressing a specific mood through orchestration and thematic treatment. The control of harmony was especially impressive. The Fantasy made a suitable complement to the rest of the music of the evening in its alternation of interior reflection, contrasting with moments of brass-driven energy. Throughout the program, the various small solo parts for woodwind and brass were accurately and vividly performed, not the least the oboe colours in the Fantasy.

The applause for the Fantasy was genuine and warm, not merely dutiful, and served as an hors d’oeuvre to an evening capped with outstanding performances of the works by Elgar and Grieg. Smiles wreathed the faces of everyone as they put on their coats, having been delighted by another fine evening at the CPO.