Are Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason those rarest things: young superstars who might be living up to their hype?
It sure looks like that. The pair are two of seven British siblings, all musicians, who rose to fame when Sheku, a cellist, won the BBC Young Musician Award in 2016. Sheku’s exposure, in particular, has been extravagant since his starring role in the Duke and Duchess’ wedding. Sussex in 2018. But listen beyond the breathless coverage of their streaming songs and you’ll find musicians who, while still in the early stages of their careers, already have serious, distinctive things to say.
Sheku, 23, made his New York Philharmonic debut in November playing Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, a performance that revealed he was a “charismatic protagonist and generous collaborator,” as Joshua Barone put it in DailyExpertNews. Isata, 25 and a pianist, has recorded two excellent solo albums, one filled with works by Clara Schumann, the other moving cleverly between composers such as Samuel Barber, Amy Beach, George Gershwin and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
After an acclaimed performance together at Weill Recital Hall in December 2019, they return on Wednesday for a duo recital at Carnegie Hall, part of a long, busy tour that continues in Boston and Atlanta for a European leg.
From Kansas City, Mo., they talked about their program of cello sonatas by Frank Bridge, Britten, Shostakovich and Khachaturian or Beethoven, depending on the stop. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
You each have your own concerns as artists, so how do you put together a program when you’re on a tour together?
SHEKU The main criterion is music that we’ve heard or want to discover, enjoy and maybe have something to say about, and spend time working on and performing many, many times. It is also always interesting to choose repertoire that may be new to some of the audiences we perform for. The Bridge Sonata is an example: it’s music that I really love and that I think is special, and that’s new to a lot of audiences.
ISATA Sometimes when we’re presenting pieces that aren’t as well known, you have to go through the difficulty of getting presenters to accept them and trust that the audience will like them. We found on this tour that the public likes these pieces; they really respond to the music. That just goes to show that all good music can be communicated, whether it’s something popular or not.
Sheku, what appeals to you about Frank Bridge’s sonata, which is a rarity even among the British and Shostakovich?
SHEKU It is an incredibly beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking piece of music. The sonata was split in terms of when it was composed, the first movement pre-World War I and the second near the end of the war. Bridge was definitely taken aback by what happened, you hear that. The first part ends quite peacefully, and then the second begins in a completely different world. It’s like a lament, with some dark, harsh moments too. It ends with the theme of the first movement, and when it does, it resembles the Elgar Cello Concerto, it is nostalgic, almost desperate. Although it ends on a nice major chord, it doesn’t feel resolved. It’s a really fascinating piece.
Was the intention that the works would talk to each other, make connections?
SHEKU The program we constructed with Khachaturian and Shostakovich, the Bridge and Britten, there are very clear connections between the pieces: Britten and Bridge have the student-teacher relationship, Britten and Shostakovich…
ISATA Via Rostropovich.
SHEKU Precisely. Those connections are very strong. When I discovered the Khachaturian Sonata, it was because I was listening to an album where Rostropovich plays the Shostakovich with Shostakovich, and the second half of the album is Rostropovich playing the Khachaturian with Khachaturian.
And the Beethoven is there because some presenters think it’s easier to promote than Khachaturian?
SHEKU It’s great music too, I get it.
ISATA It’s great music, and we played it anyway. But yeah, it was originally because it’s more accessible than the Khachaturian.
Are these works that you have lived with for a long time?
ISATA We first played The Bridge and the Britten about a year ago. The Shostakovich we played a few moves in childhood – actually we played the whole thing when we were about 18. We put it away for a few years and then came back to it.
The Shostakovich was written in 1934, after the premiere of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” but before its political conviction in 1936. How would you describe the sonata?
SHEKU He wrote it during a period of separation from his wife, but I don’t think the piece is necessarily about that. It has quite classical elements in terms of the form of the whole sonata, the style of each movement, how the phrases are constructed, but harmonically, rhythmically and the colors he chooses to use are very characteristic of Shostakovich. The third part is where he pours out all his heart, sorrow and soul. The outward movements are quite playful and quirky. He had a good sense of humor.
Do you have a favorite page in the score?
ISATA I could really pick one! It would be in the fourth volume, about six pages before the end. The music dies down, there is a moment of silence – and then the piano explodes with these fourths, holding an E-flat minor chord in the left hand. It’s just Shostakovich to have such a dramatic mood swing. When I was younger, this passage always scared me because I thought, Oh, I’m going to screw up the quarters, but now, after many years of practice, I’m usually just excited to shock the audience with this outburst.
You’ve both expressed an interest in expanding the diversity of the music your audience hears, whether it’s Clara Schumann or music rooted in spirituals, but that wasn’t the case with your Carnegie dates together. Is there room to do more of that in your chamber music programs, or is it more difficult in some areas than others?
ISATA There is great repertoire in the chamber music world from women composers, from black composers, but of course that will happen to us, as any piece of music does – by listening and feeling compelled to play them, rather than ticking boxes.
SHEKU What is potentially unfortunate is that much of the pressure to perform repertoire by women composers is placed on women, and much of the pressure to perform music by black composers is placed on black musicians. You don’t often see a white artist performing music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, for example. So just being black artists is, I don’t know, enough difference.