Our Artist in Residence, cellist Sheku, and his sister, pianist Isata, are the best-known of the musically highly gifted seven children of the British Kanneh-Mason family. Somebody who has grown up playing instruments together like these two will be more familiar with the other person's playing than almost anyone else - an excellent prerequisite for a top-class duo recital!
In Francis Poulenc's cello sonata from 1948, “romanticism, neoclassicism and modernism join hands”. This is followed by the first of Gabriel Fauré's two cello sonatas. It was composed in 1917 during the highly productive late phase of the 72-year-old composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire, whom Debussy called “maître de charme” and whom d'Indy envied for his compositional freshness even a few years later. This is followed by a short piece by British composer, violinist and Menuhin pupil Natalie Klouda (*1984) and Felix Mendelssohn's first cello sonata, which Robert Schumann (presciently?) described as “the purest music...suitable for the finest family circles”.