Yo-Yo Ma has been described by Washington Post art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott as arguably the best cellist ever, known for his fresh, richly interpretative approach.

The audience at the Bermuda Festival’s Founders’ Recital, performed in honour of its conceivers — violinist extraordinaire Yehudi Menuhin, later Lord Menuhin; Bermuda’s then Governor, Sir Edwin Leather, and the Festival’s first chairman, John Ellison — certainly anticipated a particularly special performance, and were left in sheer wonder at the brilliance of this extraordinary musician.

On Sunday evening, Mr Ma could have been performing at the Kennedy Centre rather than our own Earl Cameron Theatre.

The sense of excitement and expectancy was palpable, even as gathering audience members collected at the venue. The auditorium was filled, the doors closed and the audience sat, hushed, for several minutes before the cellist walked on to the stage.

Mr Ma seemed sincerely delighted by the warmth of his reception — it is a wonderful aspect of his concerts that he is extraordinarily generous to both his audience and fellow musicians.

This crowd was fortunate to have the great man to themselves — and performing three of Johann Sebastian Bach’s unaccompanied cello dance suites — but in other performances where he has shared the stage, his warmth towards, and appreciation of, his fellow performers is clear.

In the same way, with a warm smile and uplifted arms, he has a knack of making the audience feel that he is delighted they are there to hear him play.

In this programme, Mr Ma took us to the beginnings of music for the cello. JS Bach invented a specific style for the solo instrument, and in the Six Suites fully explores the technical possibilities.

Mr Ma’s musicianship and interpretation seem, at once, effortless and extraordinary.

Musicians in the audience were as mesmerised as everyone else — perhaps more so.

“It’s like breathing,” one said during the intermission. “The colours flow from his fingers.”

The prelude to Suite No 1 in G Major has been described as “possibly one of the most immediately recognisable solo works for the instrument”, and its opening arpeggiated figure and crystal-clear clarity was a wonderful introduction to the purity of tone and beauty of expression that Mr Ma draws from his cello.

From the even pace of the allemande, to the lively courante and the gigue, to the elegance of the first minuet, the cellist encouraged the audience to listen for nature’s infinite variety.

Bach is often deceptively complex. In this suite the music has a translucent quality, yet its texture was rich and evolving — no mean feat for a melodic instrument.

The courante’s form and structure is neatly balanced, yet Mr Ma’s interpretation made it mesmerising; the sarabande has a clear rhythm, however the performance was a lyrical, quieter one. The two minuets were surprisingly gentle movements, while the gigue completes the suite in a lively fashion, yet with truly lyrical moments.

As Mr Ma had encouraged the audience to listen for the insights into nature in Suite No 1, he encouraged us to see Suite No 5 in C Minor as a reflection of human nature.

Grand and slow, this grouping, for the most part, is a serious and complex series of movements. Certainly its prelude, in the hands of Mr Ma, moves adroitly between the emotional drama elicited by the phrasing in the lower, darker range and which he then brings together with those in the mid-range to make perfect sense, while the allemande’s weight and intensity spoke to the complexities of the soul.

The dance rhythms were even and clear, but imposed on that were sentiments of various sorts: serious and resigned, angst and a sort of peace. Bach’s Suite No 3 in C Major brings nature together with human nature, Mr Ma suggested.

The prelude breathes rhythmically and steadily, building to a crescendo, while in the gigue, he produced the purest tone I have ever heard, with ethos pouring from every note. His performance of the familiar Bouree was an entirely fresh interpretation.

A brilliant final section is described in the programme notes as a “non-stop tour-de-force”, and I can do no better than that — brilliant and with a depth of intensity of which it seems only Yo-Yo Ma is capable, bringing the audience to their feet in its entirety and all at once.

Mr Ma performed two encores: one, a piece from the fiddling tradition which has crossed the Atlantic and found a home in the Appalachians. “No more Bach,” he said to laughter.

When the audience again got to their feet, he performed a Catalonian folk song Song of the Birds, a favourite of the great Catalonian cellist Pablo Casals, which gorgeously evokes bird song and soaring flight.

As Mr Ma is quoted as saying: “I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.”

That he does, brilliantly.