Sheku Kanneh-Mason
December 6, 2019
Greatness beckons for Sheku Kanneh-Mason in the British cello's phenom's Minnesota debut
By Terry Blain
Special to the Star Tribune
When cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the BBC’s prestigious Young Musician of the Year award in 2016, he was the first black performer to do so. A viral video of his performance at the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry further stoked his celebrity status.
But it’s
Kanneh-Mason’s playing that really does the talking, as his Twin Cities
debut Thursday evening at Ordway Concert Hall thrillingly demonstrated.
Presented
by the Schubert Club, the recital started with Beethoven’s Variations on
“Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen,” an aria from Mozart’s opera “The Magic
Flute.” You’d go a long way to hear it bettered.
Much of its wit and whimsy
lies in the piano part, where the British player had a sparklingly
responsive partner in his sister Isata, at 23 just three years his
senior. They conjured an interpretation of bubbling spontaneity, alive
in every bar with cheeky inflections and joyful appreciation of
Beethoven’s inventiveness.
Polish
composer Witold Lutoslawski’s “Grave (Metamorphoses for Cello and
Piano)” followed, its air of concentrated threnody a jolting contrast to
the lighthearted Beethoven.
The
scything truculence and light-bowed slitherings of Lutoslawski’s cello
writing allowed Kanneh-Mason to stretch out technically, while his
precise scaling of dynamics enabled the composition’s structure to be
cogently articulated. The whispered cello harmonic at the work’s
conclusion fell breath-catchingly away to nothing.
Part one
of the recital concluded with a relative rarity — American composer
Samuel Barber’s Cello Sonata, a piece he wrote when roughly the same age
as the Kanneh-Masons. Both siblings brought a galvanizing commitment to
the opening movement, relishing the music’s passionate impetuosity
without allowing it to fly off into wildly unanchored territory.
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