Concert review: Castalian Quartet, Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the Castalian Quartet packed Wigmore Hall for a concert in whose first half they featured separately before combining forces after the interval.

Kanneh-Mason opened the evening with a six-movement Suite for solo cello by Natalie Klouda, whose points of reference were Indian classical music and the Bach Cello Suites. With major and minor tonalities left behind, the movements turned expectations on their heads, the Lament and Meditation referencing the C major and D major Suites respectively. Kanneh-Mason played with gravitas and intensity, making light of any technical challenges, including tuning his A string down a tone during the fifth movement, and communicating this 2017 piece exceptionally well.

Thomas Adès’s 1994 String Quartet Arcadiana followed, six of its movements portraying an uneasily skewed idyll, making the remaining movement’s rich tonal loveliness almost unbearably moving. The Castalian Quartet entered sensitively into Adès’s intricate sound world, playing its often tiny, wispy motifs with precision and giving the danse macabre of the central movement, titled ‘tango mortale’, with terrifying energy.

Schubert’s String Quintet was the natural and joyful conclusion for these forces. The performance was an unalloyed delight – a feeling particularly evident in Kanneh-Mason, on second cello and visibly relishing every punctuating pizzicato and moment of duet with Steffan Morris, the Castalian’s cellist. The two melted into their heavenly first-movement theme, and combined power in their C string unison passage to frightening effect. Leader Sini Simonen’s octave duet with Morris in the Adagio was wondrous, the Scherzo bristled with energy and the finale danced delightfully.

JANET BANKS