Shellshocked cellist

Cellist Danjulo Ishizaka greets a very enthusiastic fan club outside the stage door at Cadogan Hall yesterday. If Danjulo looks a bit shellshocked in this photo, it's probably because he's just performed the Kodaly Sonata - surely the cellistic equivalent of running a marathon. Once he'd escaped his groupies, Danjulo gave me his take on the unique challenges of this piece:

For starters, there's the scordatura, in which the G and C strings are tuned down a semitone. That takes a lot of getting used to. Then the piece is just so challenging technically. But not just technically - it's extraordinarily difficult musically too. The mood you have to create all on your own...it can be so spiritual, especially the second movement, but if you get the tempo wrong some passages can actually be quite boring... But after all that, in the concert you just forget all of these challenges and just become the music.

• Listen to Chamber Prom 12 on the Proms web site.