Kanneh-Mason Duo Surveys Twentieth Century

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason (photograph by Robin Clewley, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony Great Performers Series presented the San Francisco debut of the Kanneh-Mason duo of cellist Sheku and his sister Isata at the piano. Readers may recall that, at the beginning of last month, Isata made her solo debut under the auspices of San Francisco Performances. The program was so ingeniously conceived that the description by Benjamin Pesetsky. in the program book is worth quoting:

The four cello sonatas on today’s program are all interconnected. Frank Bridge was Benjamin Britten’s teacher, Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich were friends across the Iron Curtain, and Shostakovich taught Karen Khachaturian. They are also linked by the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (1927–2007), who recorded the Bridge and Shostakovich sonatas with Britten on piano, and to whom the Britten and Khachaturian sonatas are dedicated. [The Britten sonata was also recorded with Britten on piano.] Altogether, these pieces represent a sort of English-Russian extended family spanning the First World War through the 1960s—music that carried forward the expressive intensity and melodic sensibility of Romanticism, but sharply cut, angularly shaped, and harmonically unleashed.

Regardless of any metaphor of “extended family,” it should be noted that the English and Russian selections were separated by the intermission.

Another key observation is that, while the Britten and Shostakovich sonatas are probably familiar to those that make it a point to attend cello recitals, the Bridge and Khachaturian offerings are more likely to be encountered on recording than in recital programs. Each of these proved to be a highly engaging journey of discovery. In my own listening history, I first came to know Bridge through his art songs; and my awareness of the sonata was due entirely to the Decca recording made by Rostropovich and Britten.

Bridge’s sonata was composed during World War I, beginning that “span” cited in the program book. There is considerable darkness in the overall rhetoric, as well as nostalgia for the rich expressiveness found in late nineteenth-century music. While Pesetsky described it as a two-movement composition, the second of those movements provides a smooth transition from Adagio ma non troppo to a Molto allegro agitato finale. In other words Bridge followed the usual three-movement plan with a seamless transition from the second movement to the third. Certainly the phrasing of last night’s performance provided a clear and satisfying account of this three-movement plan.

I first came to know the Khachaturian sonata through the EMI box set of Rostropovich recordings. I must confess that “first contact” did not make much of an impression. However, this is an engaging account of traditional forms each given its own contemporary twist. I was particularly drawn to the concluding Toccata, whose Allegro con fuoco drives an intense tarantella with all the intensity of a dancer afflicted by a Lycosa tarantula spider bite.

I have been fortunate to have encountered the Britten and Shostakovich sonatas in recital settings, meaning that I did not have to depend solely on recordings, even those featuring Rostropovich and Britten. I was particularly taken with the abundance of wit that Sheku brought to the Britten sonata. One could easily take the opening Dialogo movement as an argument between brother and sister (leaving it to the listener to decide who got the better of the argument). His pizzicato work in the second movement was positively jaw-dropping, as was the dynamo driving the concluding Moto perpetuo movement.

The Shostakovich sonata was composed in 1934, not long before the hammer of Soviet authority came crashing down on him for the “decadent” qualities of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. There is a playful rhetoric in the sonata that is shared equally by the cello and piano parts. Fortunately, Rostropovich was able to record this sonata with Shostakovich at the piano in the Fifties when conditions were at least somewhat more favorable following the death of Joseph Stalin. My guess is that the Kanneh-Masons were familiar with that recording, but they were still able to provide their own rhetorical perspective on the music.

The encore selection was the spiritual “Deep River,” probably in the arrangement by Stephen DeCesare. This clearly did not fit into the “English-Russian extended family.” Nevertheless, it provided a welcoming calm after the intensity of Shostakovich’s sonata, concluding an imaginatively conceived program with abundant opportunities for journeys of discovery.