RSNO: Sheku Kanneh-Mason Plays Shostakovich
Usher Hall - 04/03/22
A star in the making?
This is the question some of us were asking at tonight’s concert about young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason at the end of Shostakovich’s second cello concerto. There is no doubt about his star reputation and pulling power, the Usher was sold out in the stalls and the grand circle and half full in the upper circle. In these cautious pandemic times that is something only Nicola Benedetti can do. Of course Sheku’s star status was established when he played at Meghan and Harry’s wedding, and being a handsome young black man and part of a very talented musical family also helps. Yet people at the interval were slightly disappointed by his performance. I suspect it was mainly because Shostakovich 2 isn’t as memorable as his first cello concerto. Indeed I’m listening to Sheku’s recording of the first concerto as I write this review and I have to say it’s pretty good (though not as good as Rostropovich for whom the concertos were written nor indeed a number of other great cellists I have listened to over the years).
This performance also reminded me of the first time I really listened to Shostakovich 2, at the finals of the Brussels Conservatoire, where my step- daughter, who now plays for the Brussels Philharmonic, played it. She told me this was a very difficult work to play; I said she played it really well, and she laughed and said come back tomorrow night and listen to my professor. She was right, the professor was much better. Why the difference I asked? “Ten years of practicing 8 hours a day” she said, and my stepdaughter was 22! So that’s the truth. Sheku is 22; he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award when he was 16, the first black musician to win it, and he comes from a very middle class musical family where he has had every support. He is a rising star, but he is only 22. Let’s have him back after another ten years of practicing and playing. I’m sure he will then be an international star, but just now he is a star in the making.
As for the performance he played it very well, but it is quite a difficult work to play. As Sarah Unwin Jones said in her very good programme notes it is the result of much collaboration between Shostakovich and Rostropovich, for whom it was written and therefore may be difficult for other cellists to fully grasp. It also opens slowly and mournfully and peters out at the end, very unlike the first cello concerto. Elim Chan, conducting, seemed to be very much in harmony with Sheku, and the audience gave it a very warm response.
The opening work of the concert was a Divertimento in 3 movements by a female Polish composer, Grazyna Bacewicz. Written in 1966 it was quite dark but melodic. I thought it sounded a bit like film music, maybe for a horror movie! The closing work was Faure’s Requiem with the RSNO Junior chorus and soloists Katy Anna Hill and Marcus Farnsworth who of course have very little work to do but did it very well. The choral work was very sweetly sung by the young choristers but we missed the power of the adult choir in delivering Faure’s great work.
