Sheku Kanneh-Mason thrills at Strathmore with the BSO

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was able to put aside anxieties about its future for this week, at least, snagging an engagement by the hot young British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who all but sold out Strathmore last night, and who, still a college student, likely didn’t charge the BSO what the few other guaranteed audience draws (Ma or Perlman) can. So a nice balance sheet for a good concert.

Kanneh-Mason became world-famous in 2018 when he performed at the televised Royal Wedding of the Duke & Duchess of Sussex, and his rendition of the Saint-Saëns Concerto displayed manifest talent. While this young artist is undoubtedly getting some extra publicity because of his race, the playing is already world-class. He will in time get better still – he doesn’t project enough in introspective passages, his vibrato could bloom more, and there were some stray intonation issues – but there were many details that showed a probing musical mind at work. He sailed through the virtuoso passages without turning a hair and offered new and interesting ideas along the way. In particular, he often discarded “tradition” in favor of looking freshly at the composer’s original indications in the score (every cellist I’ve ever heard slows down for the lyrical F major section in the last movement, but Saint-Saëns didn’t say to, so Kanneh-Mason didn’t). His buoyant enthusiasm charmed the audience, and the encore -- “Evening of Roses,” a traditional Hebrew song – highlighted his catholic musical interests.

The concert opened with a tone poem by Florence Price (1887-1953), considered the first major female African-American composer. “The Oak” was only unearthed and heard for the first time about 20 years ago, but it has slowly begun to garner performances around the country. Price was trained at the New England Conservatory, and her music is an interesting amalgam of classical tradition (Wagner and Dvorak by way of the film composer Max Steiner) and indigenous strands (Negro spirituals and American hymn tunes). There is no known program to “The Oak,” but it seems to follow some extra-musical narrative, with several episodes of near-horror in between sunnier passages. One listens in sadness at what could have been; a century ago the world treated Price’s gifts exactly the opposite of how it’s treating Kanneh-Mason’s.  

Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony is a favorite of BSO music director Marin Alsop; they recorded it together a decade ago, and she led it last night without a score, which is unusual for her.  The performance had comfort and affection, if not a lot of vitality. As a conductor, Alsop tends to react more than anticipate, and things can sometimes sound like they’re just ambling along rather than being impelled. But the BSO, having survived a near-death experience last summer, is playing with extra urgency these days; and the capacity crowd must’ve given the players still more incentive.  Hopefully, the mutual good will can keep going. The drawback was that so many patrons went to get autographs and selfies with the soloist at intermission out in the lobby that the second half started without many of them, whom the ushers then allowed to slink back in throughout the Dvorak Symphony.  Irksome.