The British brother-sister duo of cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason gave an intoxicating recital Saturday for the La Jolla Music Society (LJMS) at The Conrad. To vibrant cello sonatas by Gabriel Fauré, Felix Mendelssohn, and Francis Poulenc, the duo added the premiere of Natalie Klouda’s Tor Mordôn, a work commissioned especially for the duo.
Each performer has appeared on previous LJMS programs, but this was their first appearance together. Given the felicity of their collaboration, let’s hope we will experience this duo again.
Although Fauré’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in D Minor from 1917, a late work by this prolific composer, reveals his trademark rich harmonic palette, it also shows he was aware of the nascent neoclassical movement launched by the younger generation of European composers. Isata gave a brilliant account of Fauré’s exuberant piano part, a bit overpowering vis-a-vis Sheku’s fluent but slender cello timbre. Fortunately, as their program progressed, the balance between the two instruments evened out. It is possible that the hall filled with people had given the duo a different sense of balance than they experienced rehearsing in the empty room.
I am surprised that Felix Mendelssohn’s First Cello Sonata in B-flat Major, a ravishing, large-scaled chamber work, is not performed more frequently. Sheku adroitly navigated his solo line’s wide range and its abrupt dynamic changes with great finesse. The duo gave laudable orchestral depth to the rhapsodic sonata, and Sheku’s mesmerizing account of the “Andante,” the middle movement, revealed its soaring, poetic character.
According to the printed program notes, the title of Natalie Klouda’s Tor Mordôn means “Sea mount of light,” the rush of inspiration that comes from observing the vistas of high mountain peaks and the ocean below them. Given the mores of contemporary composition, I did not expect a clever revisit of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, and the austere soundscape of Klouda’s soundscape is anything but pictorial. Her opening movement alternates between quiet, sustained bell-like tones from the cello and dramatic contrapuntal duels between the instruments waged in a darkly tonal harmonic scheme. Her contrasting movement offered an eerie duet between the piano and the cello in deft pizzicato mode.
Francis Poulenc’s sprightly Flute Sonata, a frequently programmed chamber work, is practically required to be played on any flute major’s graduate recital. Poulenc’s earlier Cello Sonata from 1948, however, is not as well known, but the work displays his trademark crisp, witty melodic splashes and an insouciant approach to structural rigor. His first movement, marked “Tempo di Marcia” is as close to sounding like a march as one would expect from a flâneur who wouldn’t be caught dead marching in a military uniform. Again, Sheku proved most impressive interpreting the gossamer air of the wistful “Cavatine,” to which Isata provided a veritable halo of delicate piano progressions.
In the third and finale movements, the players’ adroit exchange of ebullient themes displayed acrobatic dexterity of the highest level, the necessary approach to communicate the composer’s ingratiating prowess.
For my taste, any program that opens with Fauré and progresses to Poulenc is as close to heaven as I expect to find in this life.
For their encore, the duo played a transcription of “Asturiana” from Manuel de Falla’s exalted song cycle Siete canciones populares españolas.
This recital was presented by the La Jolla Music Society on May 31, 2025, at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in downtown La Jolla.