Two musicians approaching Johann Sebastian Bach from their own particular perspectives, giving consecutive performances in a single evening: this is the formula for Bach Doubles, an intriguing new series at St George’s.

In the earlier concert, cellist Natalie Clein played the first three of the solo cello suites and, as the opening prelude of the G major suite unfolded, the Bach spell was cast anew. Clein treated the music in heightened conversational fashion, articulating the component voices and their different inflections, creating a sense of continuing narrative. While, overall, it denied some of the dance movements their fundamentally rhythmic impulse, such a declamatory style suited the Suite No 2 in D minor, highlighting its often anguished nature. The contrast with the benignly warm C major suite was marked.

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani’s virtuosic flair is at once nonchalant and scintillating. In his later recital, he delivered JS Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, and the Toccata in C minor with impeccable clarity of line and expressivity. He went on to make a subtle link with the cello suites in his own arrangement of the two gavottes from the Cello Suite No 5. And dance they did.

Works by Bach’s sons, Wilhelm Friedemann – the under-approved, as Esfahani put it – and Carl Philipp Emanuel – the over-approved – neatly illustrated the sons’ inevitable transition into a new era. Making the shift from Bach to 20th-century minimalism was an altogether greater departure, as the harpsichord’s distinctive pungency was brought to bear on Steve Reich’s Piano Phase. Yet, in duet with his own tape recording, Esfahani made the point that, in their patterns and their circularity, Bach and Reich were part of the same continuum. Mel Powell’s vibrant play on past and present, Recitative and Toccata Percossa, offered a final brilliant flourish.

• Bach Doubles continues at St George’s, Bristol, 13 November. Box office: 0845 402 4001.