There’s every reason that tickets are selling fast. Pablo Ferrández, 33, whose recent recording of Brahms and Clara Schumann with the great violinist Anne Sophie-Mutter established him as a major artist, is coming to Port Townsend. In a May 13 recital with Olympic Music Festival Director and pianist Julio Elizalde, that begins at 6:30 p.m. in Fort Worden’s Wheeler Auditorium, the young Spanish cellist will dig into the romantic music that’s in his blood: great works by Bruch, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Franck that allow him to explore the cello’s entire expressive range.

“I think one of the nice things about the type of works Pablo is drawn to is that there’s always a fundamental vocal element to the music,” Elizalde said in a Zoom chat that included Ferrández. “Some cellists are more drawn to music that’s crazy virtuosic or dramatic. Pablo’s gift is his ability to sing. I’ve heard him play Bruch’s Kol Nidre, the Jewish prayer with which we’ll begin the concert, many times, and it’s kind of magical how he plays it.”

Ferrández met Elizalde through violinist Ray Chen, whom Ferrández met when they both received the loan of priceless Stradivarius instruments from the Nippon Music Foundation. When Ferrández asked Chen for recommendations for a recital partner, Chen recommended his own frequent partner, Elizalde.

Ferrández and Elizalde connected immediately. Ferrández made an equally fast and tight connection with his current cello, another Stradivarius which was made for the Bishop of Milan perhaps 400 years ago. Maintained in pristine condition, it was rarely played until Ferrández received it on loan.

“It was like, wow, it was just waiting for me!” Ferrández exclaimed. “It’s much easier to play than my last Strad, which was played by the great cellists Gregor Piatigorsky and János Starker. I don’t know if it suits me better or if it’s just easier to play. Some Strads can be crazy difficult, but this one is easy for me.”

Ferrández chose to open with the Bruch because starting with a prayer helps people settle down from the rush of their daily lives and come together with a common energy. He considers it a communal “reset.”

Next, the duo performs Beethoven’s G minor cello sonata. Written early in Beethoven’s career, when partnerships between cello and piano were in their infancy, the piano part is extremely virtuosic and relentless.

“The piano part is absolutely crazy,” Elizalde said. “The music in this sonata was one of the first signs of the insane electricity that Beethoven can tap into when he writes. It’s a lot of fun.

“One of the big concerns in performing the piece is the balance between cello and piano. In our case, Pablo will have to match the weight of a big, spectacular Yamaha CFX concert grand. I get nervous when I play the piece because you want everything to sound correctly balanced, but there's also this weird thing that, when I try to avoid playing too forcefully, I start getting very tense.”

Ferrández was asked if he thought of using gut strings like the cellist Matt Haimovitz, who discovered that only by using gut strings and early pianos could he achieve a proper balance between the two instruments.

“They’re too awkward and slow for me,” he replied. “They are very thick. The response is not great, and their power is 50% what we get with steel. Some people say the tone is warmer, but I can get a warm sound from modern steel strings when I need it. I think I can re-create everything that Beethoven wanted on a cello that was made before Beethoven was born. I also think you can do much more with a new piano than one from Beethoven’s time.”

Elizalde, who also teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, has learned a lot about Beethoven by reviewing his actual manuscripts. “When you open the manuscript and start staring at his handwriting, you can almost touch his expressive concepts and the way he’s imagining things. You can see in the weight with which he writes things—the spacing with which he writes it or the way he puts slurs over things and the shape of the slur.

“He writes certain gestures with wider spacing and then other gestures will be suddenly compressed. Or you'll see at the end of a phrase, there's some sort of crescendo out of nowhere and his handwriting starts getting really dark. That’s how studying original manuscripts informs me. It’s a more liberating way of interacting with the music.”

Ultimately, in Elizalde’s opinion, it’s as important to be faithful to the score as it is to liberate oneself from it and transform it into something organic and human. The emotional connection is what’s most important.

“The music has to come to life,” he declared. “We have to trust Beethoven, who wrote down all his dramatic timing and dynamics. But we also have generate something completely new for the half hour that we play. The beautiful thing about working with Pablo is that he’s so diligent about markings, yet he can free himself so he can play openly and honestly for the audience. I think that’s why people get so moved by the way he plays.”

After Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, which Ferrández considers an effective post-intermission reset, comes Franck’s fabulous Sonata for Cello & Piano in A major. “It’s very emotional,” he says. "It’s a great masterpiece that has a bit of everything. You can sing and play with a lot of passion and intimacy. Between Beethoven and Franck, we can tap into almost everything.”

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For tickets to Pablo Ferrández & Julio Elizalde in Recital, go to olympicmusicfestival.org or call 360-385-9699.

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