Sheku Kanneh-Mason shines in thoughtful Elgar with National Symphony in Dublin

There may have been a political theme running through the programme of the National Symphony Orchestra's concert on Friday under the baton of Principal Conductor Jaime Martín, but the reason it was sold out was the appearance of cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason.

Kanneh-Mason plays a mean Elgar Cello Concerto, as he demonstrated on a 2020 best-selling disc with Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO, and he performed it here for a delighted Dublin audience with the National Symphony Orchestra. His take on Elgar's last major work, written in 1919 when the composer ended a self-imposed silence for the duration of the Great War, differs from that of another famous – and famously young – proponent of the work, Jacqueline du Pré. Kanneh-Mason has said he was hugely influenced by du Pré's exuberant recording, but he seemed to be searching for something else. From the opening chords, played on his 1700 Matteo Goffriller cello, that are as distinctive in their way as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Kanneh-Mason brought out the hidden beauties of the simple themes Elgar embeds throughout the work. One of these, which opens the second movement, is nothing more than joined semiquavers on B, then D, B and A. Kanneh-Mason tackled every theme as if he'd expended a great deal of thought on how best to play each one, and how they fitted into the whole.

Jaime Martín reined in the orchestra to spotlight the cello, which was no mean feat when showcasing an instrument that lies the middle range of the orchestral spectrum. Nowhere was Martín's foot on the brakes more noticeable than in the finale, where Elgar parachutes in a beautiful romantic melody which allowed the cello to bathe the hall in lush sound. 

The concert opened with Irish composer Siobhán Cleary's Cokaygne, an 8-minute romp from 2009 which Cleary says was inspired by a 13th-century Irish poem about a land made entirely of food. With nods to Ligeti, and perhaps John Adams, Cleary uses a jaunty rhythm, with xylophone and strident brass, to depict a paradise which she says “has its darker side”. 

Jean Sibelius wrote his Second Symphony after he had composed his Finlandia, a piece based on Finnish myth that is often considered Finland's unofficial national anthem. There's more of the same in the Second Symphony and Martín and the NSO did it proud, especially the brass which at times seems to want everyone to rise from their seats and salute the Finnish flag. Written at a time when Finland was under the Russian yoke, Sibelius' symphony might have lost something of its political resonance in the interim, but the message is back with a vengeance today.