Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Harry Baker

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 14/8/24

Sheku Kanneh Mason, cello, Harry Baker, piano

Today’s concert is a complete sell-out, including standing spaces, and on a sunny morning the Queen’s Hall is the place to be for this eclectic mix of classical and jazz, written or inspired by J.S Bach.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason is one of the few instantly recognisable classical musicians in the UK. Eight years on from winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year, he’s still only 25, and with big performances and classical recordings under his belt, can afford to spend time exploring cross-cultural works like these.  Harry Baker has a impressive career as a jazz pianist and is also a composer and arranger.  This is one of a series of concerts they’re collaborating on this summer in the UK and Europe. 

In a nicely-gauged informal fashion, the performers take turns to introduce the dozen items on the programme.  The most engaging in the first half are the pair of compositions by jazz artists, US pianist, Bill Evans’ ’Waltz for Debby’ and guitarist, Pat Metheny’s ‘James’;  in both Baker’s jazz piano is matched by Kanneh-Mason’s rhythmic strumming with melodic interventions.  We’re missing a fuller rhythm section but for those of a certain age, there’s a touch of Jacques Loussier here.

The longest and most demanding works are folk-inspired as well as influenced by Bach.  Janacek’s 1906 ‘Pohádka’ [CT1] (Fairy tale) in the first half shares the jagged rhythms and similarly bitter melodies with his three short songs which precede it.  (Curiously, there’s no spoken introduction to this 12 minute work which many of us might have appreciated.) The long cello lines in the lower register seem profoundly sad, and I’m not surprised to learn later that this was written after the death of Janacek’s daughter. The change of rhythm and lighter touch in the third movement may indicate some hope.  In the second half there are two, more cheerful, excerpts from Villa-Lobos’ ‘Bachianas Brazilianos no 2’ (Bach-inspired Brazilian Music). Villa-Lobos gave each piece a classical title and a Brazilian one (which weren’t in today’s programme).  We hear the pulsing ‘Dansa/ Lembrança do Sertão’ (Memento of the Sertão) followed by ‘Toccata/O trenzinho do caipira’ (The little train of the country-people) with its interesting  rattles and wheezes and a squeal of brakes at the end.

Someone at the interval wonders if the programme is the wrong way round:  J S Bach is there or thereabouts throughout, but there’s more from the man himself in the second half.  Kanneh-Mason plays three of the movements from the ‘Cello Suite No1’.  I confess I find Bach’s writing for solo cello difficult, but programming three movements from the suite separately during the second half pays off, and by the ‘Sarabande’ I’m fully on board with the richness and sweep of the melody and the crunchy chords.  Bach’s Chorale ‘Ich ruf zu Dir’ is played in a straightforward setting on piano by Baker before both players enjoy his improvisation.  And there are two Preludes and Fugues in the programme. The first is an interesting pastiche, with Shostakovich-inspired Prelude written by Kanneh-Mason and a Bach-like fugue by Baker, and the second is Baker’s arrangement of the ‘Prelude and Fugue in D flat Major,’ originally written as a keyboard piece for Bach’s second wife, Anna-Magdalena.  The two-part fugue works pretty well divided between the cello and piano and brings the morning to an appropriate end.

This deservedly popular concert receives much applause, and, as an encore,  Piazzola’s ‘Libertango’ sends us happily on our way.

Photo from theartsdesk.com