Klengel

Following his breakout moment as the first black musician to win BBC's Young Musician of the Year Award in 2016 and a "standout" (NPR) performance at TRH the Duke & Duchess of Sussex's wedding, 20-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason releases a new album featuring Elgar's Cello Concerto. Performed with Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, it is complemented by a collection of pieces from Elgar's time, chosen by Sheku as a reflection of different moods and influences.

One may be surprised to hear in this recording the Sonata Op. 108 in D minor for cello and not for violin as Brahms conceived it. But, purists be damned, transcription in the 19th century was common practice, if only to facilitate the dissemination of works at a time when sound recording was not yet available! Indeed, didn’t Brahms himself transcribe his two Clarinet Sonatas Op. 120 for viola? In the present recording, Marie- Claude Bantigny has chosen simply to play the violin part an octave lower, without modifying the piano part in any way (unlike Paul Klengel in Op. 78), which allows the score to be heard practically in its original conception, like the same Lied that would be sung by a soprano or a bass baritone.

Julius Röntgen was born on 9 May 1855 in Leipzig, the son of Dutch violinist Engelbert Röntgen, leader of the Gewandhausorchester there, and German pianist Pauline Klengel. He started composing at an early age and took the stage with his own works in Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Leipzig as a child prodigy. At the age of fifteen he was introduced to Franz Liszt, who invited him to one of his famous soirees after he played two of his own compositions to him.

The tragedy of du Pré’s brief career is still fresh in the public memory and can be summarised here. She was born in Oxford on 26 January 1945 into a middle-class family in which music was important: her mother was a fine pianist and a gifted teacher. The French-sounding name came from her father’s Channel Islands ancestry. Just before her fifth birthday, when she was already showing musical promise, she heard the sound of a cello on the radio and the course of her life was set.