Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 2 – Britten: Cello Sonata

In anticipation of his 60th birthday, Shostakovich, though in poor health, composed his Cello Concerto No. 2 in 1966. For all its brooding qualities, this is not the work of an exhausted man, but of a survivor in full control of his art, even able to take a sardonic view of his own mortality. Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason gives full and nuanced expression to this still greatly underestimated work. He is joined by John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London, who are truly equal partners in a work Shostakovich originally began as a symphony. In its sparsely orchestrated yet increasingly fierce central movement, Kanneh-Mason spars with several superb soloists from the orchestra’s ranks, including hair-raising playing from the two horns. Sheku joins his pianist sister, Isata Kanneh-Mason, for Benjamin Britten’s Cello Sonata (1961), a work Shostakovich rated even above Chopin’s and Debussy’s sonatas. Besides the piano’s dark Shostakovich-style chords in the opening, the Russian surely admired the English composer’s ability to conjure an extraordinary range of colors from just cello and piano: the pizzicato second movement, or the noble procession of the “Elegia” third movement are both highlights in this dazzling performance. The Fauré-like melody that opens Shostakovich’s own Cello Sonata, composed in 1934, can seem a world away from his usual biting sarcasm. But Isata artfully sounds the off-key notes which jolt any sense of complacency out of the suave opening, even as her brother does ample justice to its mellifluous theme.