Sheku Kanneh-Mason Program

SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, CELLO FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2023 | 7:30 PM Shannon Hall at Memorial Union David and Kato Perlman Chamber Music Series

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SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, CELLO FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008 (1717–ca. 1720) Prélude Allemande Courante Sarabande Menuett I and II Gigue

Gwilym Simcock (b. 1981)

Prayer for the Senses (2022)

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)

Cello Suite No. 1, Op. 72 (1964) Canto primo: Sostenuto e largamente— Fuga: Andante moderato— Lamento: Lento rubato— Canto secondo: Sostenuto— Serenata: Allegretto pizzicato— Marcia: Alla marcia moderato— Canto terzo: Sostenuto— Bordone: Moderato quasi recitativo— Moto perpetuo e canto quarto: Presto

IN T E RM IS S IO N Leo Brouwer (b. 1939)

Sonata No. 2 for Solo Cello (2020) I II III This work is dedicated to Sheku Kanneh-Mason and was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society through the generous support of an anonymous donor.

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Edmund Finnis (b. 1984)

Five Preludes for Solo Cello (2021) Prelude I Prelude II Prelude III Prelude IV Prelude V

Gaspar Cassadó (1897–1966)

Suite for Solo Cello (1926) Preludio-fantasia Sardana Intermezzo e danza finale

PROGRAM NOTES JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008 (1717–ca. 1720) Within the output of the inimitably prolific Johann Sebastian Bach, chamber music held a niche position. While his contemporaries Corelli and Telemann made substantial income from printing and selling their chamber music as domestic music, Bach wrote chamber music as part of the responsibilities of his employment as a court musician and then Kapellmeister in Leipzig. During his time Cöthen (1717–1723) in the court of Prince Leopold, Bach wrote the beloved six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001–1006, from 1720, and the six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, which were probably composed earlier. As such, they represent an attempt to satisfy the tastes of his patron Leopold, an enthusiastic and accomplished musician in his own right. Yet, Bach would arrange and repurpose movements of chamber pieces from this period into later organ works and cantatas, suggesting he held these works in high regard.

Bach’s Second Suite for Solo Cello balances sophistication with approachability to please his court patrons. The rhapsodic Prelude establishes an initial motive to explore the harmonic progressions, yet as it modulates to more and more distant (and exciting) keys, so, too, does the melody generate exciting new ideas. For the Allemande, Bach captures the spirit of the dance, which uses short pick-up notes to lead into beats one and three, but he starts to let the latter lapse falling on beat four instead. The swift Courante bursts out with a thrilling melodic line, yet Bach never fails to underline his compelling modulations with moments of harmony. The Sarabande, whose slow tempo often makes for stately music, sounds in this case somber, with agitated trills on the triple-meter dance’s syncopated strong beats.

Menuetts I and II (the latter being the trio) remain true to the casual, fun dance style with simple ornamentation that is natural and singerly rather than contrived. The Gigue finale combines the joyful excitement of the quick six-eight meter with more harmonic accentuation to demarcate the form. While some of Bach’s suites show the composer at his most boundary-pushing, the courtly dances of Cello Suite No. 2 instead remain familiar while nonetheless impressive with harmonic ingenuity and melodic creativity.

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GWILYM SIMCOCK (b. 1981) Prayer for the Senses (2022) Gwilym Simcock is equally at home in the worlds of classical and jazz music. An admired jazz pianist, he was singled out by Chick Corea to give a solo performance at the 2007 Klavier-Festival Ruhr, going on to lead his own piano trio in recordings that have been praised for reviving a genre burdened by the legacy of greats like Bill Evans.

Strongly influenced by pianist Keith Jarrett, who attempted to create a kind of “universal folk music,” Simcock’s compositions—whether in a classical or jazz idiom—are often both experimentally complex and melodically enthralling, drawing on modes and gapped scales common to folk music, and creating metric patterns reminiscent of forgotten dances.

In Prayer for the Senses, Simcock creates a rhapsodic paean that extends a great deal of artistic license to the performer for tempo and pacing. The work opens with evocative and largely atmospheric harmonies as notes slide in and out of consonance and dissonance.

This languid opening, which returns in the middle and at the end, gives way to quick and jagged eighth notes in a decidedly Baroque style that creates implied harmonies through wide leaps in register (which Simcock encourages the performer to bring out). After a return of the opening harmony, the piece enters into a tuneful section that sings like a folk melody, showcasing Simcock’s notable gift for writing tunes. These three styles—experimental harmony, Baroque eighth notes, and folk tune—all come and go through the remainder of the piece in a manner that sounds eclectic yet unified, experimental yet approachable.

BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913–1976) Cello Suite No. 1, Op. 72 (1964) As the dust continues to settle on the 20th century, the enduring power of Benjamin Britten’s music offers testimony to the wisdom of his inherent pragmatism. A decidedly conservative composer compared to the Western avant-garde, Britten developed a distinctive and indeed modern take on the tonal musical tradition of the Classical and Romantic eras. Yet his traditionalism was not merely tradition for its own sake; rather, he held a fierce belief that music lives through 6

connections with audiences, and his familiar-yet-new style achieved just that. Connecting his music to the larger public also spurred him to support and revive operatic institutions across England and to focus on increasing musical literacy—especially among children— through educational programs. He also drew inspiration from musicians with similar attitudes: He wrote the three Cello Suites for Mstislav Rostropovich, whose ability to move audiences Britten greatly admired.

Britten’s First Cello Suite consists of nine movements performed without pause, starting with a droning and emotive Canto that becomes a recurring anchor. Following the sustained (sostenuto) style of the Canto, the Fuga provides imitative multivoice textures all created by the solo instrument. The characteristically somber Lamento eschews both harmony and counterpoint, like a soliloquy of deep isolation that only ends when the Canto returns—its drone harmony now sounding especially rich. The pizzicato Serenata exemplifies musical narration, starting in delicate pastels and growing into a turbulent climactic angst before a calming dénouement. The Marcia weaves together three topics: a horn-call of open intervals, rhythmic strumming that resembles field drums, and a conventional march style with propulsive dotted rhythms. The third Canto, the most tormented of all, initiates the final section of the work. The Bordone continues the drones, juxtaposing them with a skittering attempt to find the will to move forward, until a quiet singsong melody in sixeight offers a bit of hope. The Presto finale, however, takes up the skittering motive, turning it into a driving (but exciting) anxiety that is interrupted by quotes of the Cantos, ultimately ending unresolved.

Across the piece, Britten’s use of potent and pregnant musical styles easily lends itself to constructing a narrative—perhaps one of adversity, defeat, and resolve—but that ability to hear a story in Britten’s works belies the composer’s unmatched skill for writing music that truly remained in a common language.

LEO BROUWER (b. 1939) Sonata No. 2 for Solo Cello (2020) Composer, conductor, and guitarist Leo Brouwer has been the leading figure in Cuban classical music for more than half a century, rising to 7

acclaim first as a self-taught virtuoso guitarist in the 1950s. He studied composition at The Juilliard School and quickly joined the ranks of top avant-garde composers of the 1960s, attending the famed Warsaw Autumn festival, where he became deeply moved by the “Polish school” of sonorism. Just as John Cage centered environmental sound in his music, so, too, did sonorists make the abstract concept of sound and its physical properties the inspiration for their compositions.

Imitating mathematical sine curves, manipulating spatial effects (like the Doppler effect), or activating harmonic overtones, sonorists exploited the physics and science of sound to new aesthetic ends.

As Brouwer once explained, “I use any form to help me find musical forms: that of a leaf, of a tree, or geometric symbolisms. All these are also musical forms; despite the fact that my works appear very structured, what interests me is sound.” Yet, as was the case for many composers of the 20th century, Brouwer’s youthful iconoclasm of the ’60s gave way to what he described as a “new simplicity” in his music after 1980, when he started working more with minimalist techniques, tonal harmonies, and neoromantic melodies, especially in Canciones remotas and La región más transperente.

In the Sonata No. 2, the opening movement combines Brouwer’s avant-garde harmonic language with an impassioned melodic breath of Romanticism, with the opening motive’s wide leaping melody— reminiscent of Messiaen’s birdsong—becoming a recurring theme.

The quick second movement mixes different syncopated dance rhythms, subtly augmenting and reducing them as they evolve. In the third movement, the beginning and ending are slow and decisive with pronounced dotted rhythms, contrasting with the mid-tempo middle section that contains the work’s most tonal harmonies. If his First Cello Sonata from 1964 represents youthful rebellion with its dislocated experimentalism, this evening’s follow-up written for Sheku KannehMason may well come to represent the composer’s refined maturity.

In the Composer’s Own Words Completed on December 18, 2020, Sonata No. 2 for Solo Cello was composed expressly for the excellent cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

His special sound and professionalism, even at his young age, greatly motivated me to make my second sonata for this instrument. It is really very difficult for me to talk or write about my music; I prefer 8

to compose it and not explain it. Thanks to Mr. James Murphy, Chief Executive of the Royal Philharmonic Society, for encouraging these projects in favor of the cello repertoire in the 21st century and promoting young talents.

EDMUND FINNIS (b. 1984) Five Preludes for Solo Cello (2021) British composer Edmund Finnis moves with ease from intimate, small-scale chamber music to film scores, from electronic music to orchestra pieces. His initial success owes thanks to the London Sinfonietta, which championed his music. He has gone on to write for leading performers in the English music scene, including rising stars Jess Gillam and Sheku Kanneh-Mason. Like other young composers of his generation, including Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Caroline Shaw, Finnis writes music that explores space and atmosphere, and especially the ephemeral environment. His works such as the String Quartet No. 1 often draw inspiration from the fluctuation of air, light, and clouds. As elusive and fleeting as these subjects may be, his music is anything but trivial; instead, it acts as a reminder of the mystery and majesty of the natural world and the impossibility of ever fully grasping it.

In the Five Preludes for Solo Cello, five short movements (none longer than two minutes) create a sense of spaciousness and atmosphere that seems to defy capacity of a solo cello. Prelude I uses a recurring melodic motive, punctuated and reinterpreted in different registers, to take the listener on a journey, plotting out space. In Prelude II, by contrast, the listener seems to remain in one location as tremolo-like passages rise and fall in volume like objects coming in and out of range. Prelude III has a plangent lyricism of a more Romantic vein, yet toward the end, Finnis still ornaments the melody with grounding notes, as though a self-possessed protagonist has suddenly become aware of the environment. Prelude IV juxtaposes registers and harmonics in a repeating figure to generate a solemn meditation. The effervescent finale flits and floats with turning figures that follow their own path seemingly without a predetermined direction. As a whole, the five preludes illustrate a refined and stylish range of approaches to spatial composition today.

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GASPAR CASSADÓ (1897–1966) Suite for Solo Cello (1926) A virtuoso cellist and composer, Gaspar Cassadó had an international career playing with the likes of Harold Bauer, Arthur Rubinstein, and Yehudi Menuhin. As a composer, he focused primarily on works for his own instrument, but greatly admired Maurice Ravel, Zoltán Kodály, and fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla. Like that of his contemporaries, Cassadó’s style embodies waning late-stage Romanticism (prior to the full-fledged Modernism of Stravinsky and Schoenberg). Described by scholars today as “maximalism,” the period is marked by an aesthetic of excess often meant to hold a mirror to a decaying society past its prime.

Although a work for solo cello may not seem maximal on its face, this suite nonetheless indulges in virtuosic and compositional excess as only an instrumental virtuoso could have imagined. The three movements each take inspiration from an old Spanish dance: first, the zarabanda (sarabande), well known from Baroque suites (including Bach’s, heard on this program); second, a sardana, the solemn national dance of Cassadó’s own Catalonia; and third, a jota, a theatrically performed triplemeter dance. While all three dances likely held personal significance for Cassadó, in the Suite, they labor under so much virtuosic flourish, coloristic ornamentation, and harmonic experimentation to become practically unrecognizable. Instead, as in Ravel’s Valses—which takes the waltz as its material—the dances act as emblems of a bygone era whose function (as music for dancing) is forgotten. Across the three movements, Cassadó juxtaposes straightforward dance music with meandering ornamentation driven seemingly by the performer’s own stream of consciousness.

Phrases repeat in chromatic modulations that disrupt the formal regularity. Metric patterns degenerate as quickly as they become solidified.

The tempo is always in flux. By the end, the performer’s technical feats inevitably thrill, but they also raise the question of what is lost and what is gained with such display—a question very much top of the mind for Cassadó’s milieu about society as a whole.

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ARTIST BIO SHEKU KANNEH-MASON Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s career and performances span the globe.

Whether performing for children in a school hall, at an underground club, or in the world’s leading concert venues, Sheku’s mission is to make music accessible to all. After winning the BBC Young Musician competition in 2016, Sheku’s performance at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle in 2018 was watched by two billion people worldwide.

Highlights of the 23/24 season include the Last Night of the Proms with the BBC Symphony and Marin Alsop; and performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orquesta Nacional de España, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Oslo Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic on tour in Germany, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. With his sister, Isata, he appears in recital in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea in addition to an extensive European recital tour. Sheku will also perform a series of duo recitals with guitarist Plínio Fernandes, and continue his solo recital tour in the US and Canada. He returns to Antigua, where he has family connections, as an ambassador for the Antigua and Barbuda Youth Symphony Orchestra. Since his debut in 2017, Sheku has performed every summer at the BBC Proms, including in 2020, when he gave a breathtaking recital performance with Isata to an empty auditorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Decca Classics recording artist, Sheku’s 2022 album, Song, showcases his innately lyrical playing in a wide and varied range of arrangements and collaborations. His 2020 album Elgar reached number eight in the overall Official UK Albums Chart, making him the first-ever cellist to reach the UK Top 10. Sheet music collections of his performance repertoire, along with his own arrangements and compositions, are published by Faber.

Sheku is a graduate of London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Hannah Roberts. In May 2022, he was appointed the Academy’s first Menuhin Visiting Professor of Performance Mentoring.

He is an ambassador for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Future Talent, and Music Masters. Sheku was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours List.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason appears by arrangement with Enticott Music Management.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason records exclusively for Decca Classics.

Sheku plays a Matteo Goffriller cello from 1700 which is on indefinite loan to him.

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COMING UP IN THEATER ISIDORE STRING QUARTET Friday, December 8 | 7:30 PM Shannon Hall at Memorial Union Classical Series

BLUE NOTE RECORDS 85th Anniversary Tour Friday, January 26 | 7:30 PM Shannon Hall at Memorial Union Jazz Series

SCHUMANN QUARTET Thursday, February 8 | 7:30 PM Shannon Hall at Memorial Union Classical Series

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