Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano
Performers
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano
Program
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Cello Sonata No. 1
FAURÉ Cello Sonata No. 1
NATALIE KLOUDA Tor Mordôn (NY Premiere)
POULENC Cello Sonata
Encore:
HOLST "In the Bleak Midwinter" (arr. for cello and piano by Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh Mason)
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 45
Felix Mendelssohn wrote his First Cello Sonata in 1838 for his brother Paul, an amateur cellist. The brothers maintained a close friendship and correspondence, and this piece is a testament to that relationship. It is by turns joyous and poignant, and it owes considerable debts to the cello sonatas of Beethoven, whom Mendelssohn greatly admired.
FAURÉ Cello Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 109
Gabriel Fauré wrote his unsettling First Cello Sonata close to the end of his life, while World War I was ravaging Europe. He dedicated it to the cellist and conductor Louis Hasselmans, the brother of his partner Marguerite Hasselmans. It is an excellent example of Fauré’s late style, which combines the lush harmonies and melodies of late-Romantic French music with a fragmented and almost modernist approach to rhythm and structure.
NATALIE KLOUDA Tor Mordôn
In Tor Mordôn, which translates from ancient Brythonic languages as “sea mount of light,” Natalie Klouda draws on Welsh and Antiguan myth. Over the course of two contrasting movements, one contemplative and one dramatic, she evokes the heritage of piano-cello duo Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, for whom the piece was written.
POULENC Cello Sonata, FP 143
Francis Poulenc’s Cello Sonata is a rare solo work for strings by this composer. He completed it in the 1940s for the formidable French cellist Pierre Fournier, whose brilliant technique allowed Poulenc to write one of the most challenging and inventive pieces in the cello repertoire.