Sheku Kanneh-Mason

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0:31Hello and welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which some of the world's leading artistic figures reveal the influences and experiences that have inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson and my guest in this episode is the cellist Sheku Kenne Mason. Born in Nottingham in 1999 into a big musical family, he and his six siblings all grew up learning classical instruments. They appeared on Britain's Got Talent in 2015. Sheik, who first made his mark as a solo performer the following year when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. In 2018, a global audience of over a billion people watched him perform live at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

1:10Since then, he's received two classical Brit awards, an MBE for services to music, and he's performed at the proms every year since 2017. His book, The Power of Music, charts his creative journey, whilst his new album, his fifth release, includes recordings of works by Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten.

1:32Sheku Kenne Mason, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you very much. I'm delighted that you brought your cello to the studio with you today. Just first of all, tell us about this instrument. Who made it and when? Yes, it's an incredibly beautiful cello. It was made in 1700 by Matteo Gofrella, who was a maker in Venice, one of the great makers of particularly cellos, but violins as well. And this is a particularly special example of his work. 325 years old then. Yes. It's an incredibly good make, isn't it? It is, yes. I love that patina of age that you have all the way, the varnish. How does it sound?

2:09It has a particularly warm and sort of resonant and dark quality to the sound.

2:36How is it that something that old can get better with age? I mean, that sounds incredible, doesn't it? I think because it's been resonating and singing for so long, I think it develops these layers of sound and complexity to the sound, which I really enjoy kind of finding and exploring. It's also just incredibly well made. How long have you had it? I've had it for about five years. On loan, I presume? Yes. On a long loan? On a hopefully very long loan.

3:20On this cultural life, Sheikou, my guests choose their most important creative influences and experiences. And many people, of course, will be aware of the Canet Mason family history and the influence of your parents in particular. But I'm going to start by taking back two generations to your paternal grandfather, Arnold Mason, to whom you've dedicated your new book. Why was he such an influential figure for you? He was always incredibly supportive. My Antiguan grandparents were living in London, and so we'd see them very often in school holidays. And they'd also come to stay with us in Nottingham.

3:58And I have lots of memories of practising, and particularly my granddad. standing in the doorway or sort of lurking and humming along. And it was always such like a constant and genuine love of music that he had. And that enthusiasm I found to be very inspiring as a child. But he had grown up in Antigua, a big classical music fan. What, from his early years? He was, yeah, always really fascinated and in love with classical music. And it's funny now going to Antigua and chatting to our uncles who knew him when they were all young and they were sort of baffled by his love and fascination with this music that they didn't know or take to.

4:38But he was just, yeah, really drawn to this world of music. Because traditionally the rhythms of Antigua would be soca or calypso and very different kind of music. Did he play? He did play the violin a little bit in his youth, but not to a high level. And he would encourage you all the time as well? All the time, yes, yeah. He was a great lover of composers like Rackmannov for the piano and for the cello, Vorjak the cello concerto.

5:12He's always telling me, he wants to hear me play that.

5:23And he was a great lover of chamber music, and in particular Schubert's Trout Quintet. which was a piece that feels like it was always around in my childhood and I associate it a lot with him.

5:40That piece is particularly warm and gentle and characterful, which I think is very similar to his character and his response to music and so I have lots of memories of him responding to that music. There was a particular documentary made by Christopher Newpin In the late 60s, 1960s Yes, yeah, exactly, of the sort of preparations and a performance At the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London Of five, at the time, superstar soloists Of their individual instruments coming together It's Chak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline Dupre, Zubin Mehta And Pinchas Zuckerman Five individualists with a single aim It's a wonderful collection of five characters Young characters as well That's the other thing, when you look at that You realise that those people are in their mid-twenties They're your age Yeah, I guess in their youth But very much at the height of their careers in many ways If you start a little sooner after the song One, two, three, and not Ah!

6:50Great difference

6:58We definitely were thrilled by seeing the way they would rehearse and perform and interact with the music as children and at that time we were all starting to learn our various instruments and actually wanted to learn the particular instruments that would form that quintet. In the end that didn't happen because double bass was a bit too big in my parents' opinion and Iseter, who's our pianist, was also playing the viola and so there was never a combination where we could, as a family, play that trial quintet, but we loved listening and watching and playing bits for fun. I wonder if it was also about the attitude because there's an amazing sense of joy in the music-making when they're rehearsing.

7:37The concert is at the South Bank, isn't it, mentally? Do you know that there's a serious public waiting outside? No, no, no, no. Come on, let's start. But they are in a rehearsal room and there's so much laughter and passion for the music. That must have been quite infectious for you. Absolutely. And that was always our first way into music was the idea of playing and fun and interacting. And that is, as you say, it's very infectious. But being a family of players, obviously chamber music is the obvious outlet for that, isn't it? Yes, chamber music. Well, for us, it felt very kind of similar in many ways to how we would live as a family, sort of inspiring each other, you know, talking, laughing.

8:19Playing in a series of chambers, the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, wherever, I guess. Exactly. This is the hallway where we use our, like, whole practice, like if we're playing on our sextet or trios or quartets. Here's the lounge. Shaky usually likes to practice in here. And he always tightens the music, stands low, so you can never wind them up again to play the violin. See, sometimes you have to play the violin sitting down. That was always, and still is, such a big part of our family. And I love chamber music because it's sort of individuals, each coming with their individual personality and relationship with the music.

8:58And that's then amplified when you bring that together with others. And what happens when it is siblings playing chamber music together? What does that do for the dynamic, the sense of understanding? I think there is a wealth of common knowledge, understanding. It's really nice and often very easy. A lot of that is because we've spent a lot of time playing together, listening to music together and talking about music together. We've grown up kind of doing it together.

9:36In your book, the very first words on the first page are, I am a cellist. Can you remember the first time that you picked up this instrument and the effect that it had on you? My dad played the cello in his youth, and so we had a cello at home, and when I said that I wanted to learn, I took out his cello, which was far too big, of course, and I have a memory of looking down at the instrument at the fingerboard and drawing the bow across the string and feeling the instrument really close to me physically and enjoying that sensation. The resonance. The resonance, yeah, because it really sits sort of within you, and that's a really beautiful feeling.

10:13And the vocal quality of this instrument is something that I found to be, something that I wanted to be able to produce. You'd been playing violin before that? I was playing the violin, and my mum was teaching me, and my older sister Eyestone and Bremer, my brother, were playing the violin and the piano, so it was natural to also follow and do what they were doing. I don't have much memory of playing the violin, to be honest, but I don't think I got on very well. Was it expected of you that you just learn an instrument at a young age? Yes, definitely. I don't really... There was no choice in this festival.

10:43Yeah, I don't remember the choice, but I do remember seeing a youth orchestra in Nottingham. We have an Albert Hall, which is not the Royal Albert Hall in London, but the Nottingham Albert Hall. Not as big, but just as special to me. And I remember seeing a youth orchestra and being really excited by the cello section. I think at that age, it could have been I just wanted to play a bigger and cooler instrument than my older siblings. or maybe there was something special in the sound that I was really drawn to. Is that it as well, that the cello is cooler than the violin or the piano? That's certainly true.

11:11I'm sure others would dispute that. I think there is a personality to the instrument that I find more suited to me. You sit down and it kind of comes from, I don't know, from the floor or beneath often musically rather than singing from on top, which I found less natural for me. It underpins a lot of the music, doesn't it? But can also fly. But can also, yeah, have its wonderful flying moments.

12:09Jacqueline Dupre, of course, is the cellist in that 1968 documentary. At the time, she was already a big star, having recorded the Elgar Cello Concerto four years earlier, I think when she was just 20 years old. Was she a role model for you when you first started playing the cello? She was the role model. I was in awe of her playing. I think this commitment to every note and this utter kind of conviction with which she plays was something that I was incredibly drawn to. Did you study her and emulate her then? I definitely watched lots of videos and tried to get that vibrato and learnt from what she was doing.

12:48I think it's also a very individual way of playing that she has and so whilst I learnt some specific things I also learnt just from the approach to playing.

13:07It's often easy to think when someone plays like Jacqueline Dupre where it feels so spontaneous and that the character and the heart is at the front of everything that there isn't also a fundamental technique in order to be able to do that. I think she has one of the most phenomenal understandings of this instrument and that means that she is able to be very free and I try to have a real understanding of the inner workings of the music and then that allows my soul and feelings towards it to come out. And I think the stronger the relationship you have to the music, often the more individual the musician sounds.

13:59Your next choice for this cultural life, Sheikou, is another of your musical heroes. It's the Russian cellist Mislav Rostropovich. Do you remember the first time you heard him, heard a recording of him? Yes, I do. He has a few different recordings of Rachmaninoff's vocalese, but there's one, I think it's the second earliest, and the sound and intensity of vibrato and range of expression was something incredibly gripping, powerful and beautiful and touching.

14:44Where would you have heard that? At home? Did your parents give you a recording? At home it would be YouTube. back in the day was often my way of discovering a lot of music because of the combination of watching lots of old videos and new videos of musicians. Oh, so you'd gone down a cello rabbit hole and you'd come across Rostropovich eventually. Exactly. And actually, yeah, often when I probably could have been in bed, shall we say, I would go on these rabbit holes of listening to lots of different recordings of the same piece, lots of different recordings of the same artist, and I came to Rostropovich and have been in love ever since.

15:27Rostropovich was taught by the Soviet composer Shostakovich, who wrote both of his cello concertos for Rostropovich to play. In 2016, of course, you won the BBC Young Musician of the Year playing the Shostakovich first cello concerto.

15:52Why that one? Why that? Such a challenging piece for a competition, isn't it? It is challenging, for sure. It was a piece I was obsessed with, and I think that obsession is the great driver for being able to overcome the sort of technical challenges that are in the piece. There were lots of things in the first concerto that were very new technically for me, and so I think learning that developed all of those. So that fed the obsession with Shostakovich, the challenge. Yeah, yeah, I was into sort of like being able to play such a giant of a piece and one that has so many gripping things emotionally and there's a lot of tension in the music.

16:32A lot of tension, a lot of drama. Yes, and a lot of drama and that's like, yeah, it's a thrill to play, I think. Can you give us a sense of that passion, that drama? Just a quick burst of the... I can't. Put you on the spot here. Yeah, well, yeah, well, look at me.

16:53It's very intense, it's very percussive, and it's physically involved. In one of the heats for the Young Musician of the Year, you actually broke a string. Astonishingly, it was your C string, the thickest string, which gives a sense of how hard you were playing.

17:17Yes, I think I was just giving everything, perhaps too much in that moment. But it's nice to feel on the edge of possibility and tension and sound. Sometimes the music really demands that passion. Yeah, I think it really does. You've now recorded Shostakovich's second cello concerto. It's got that same sense of passion, hasn't it? And technical challenge. Yes, definitely has both of those things and some different technical challenges in the second one. And I find it different in terms of the patience of the music. In the first concerto, it's very immediate, whereas the second concerto comes from maybe a deeper and darker and more patient place, a more reflective place.

17:57That's interesting, because it's not a particularly lyrical piece, is it? It's, yeah, I mean, and particularly in the second movement, it's very, very angular. Sort of chromatic runs, sort of almost a dissonant quality to it. A massive dissonant quality, and a sort of weird and twisted quality, which I don't know why I'm drawn to, but there's something also very beautiful about the moments that are suddenly sweet in contrast.

18:30Can I suggest that because of your obsession with Shostakovich, it was when you were a teenager, this is quite angsty music, possibly the sort of music that would appeal to a teenager.

18:55Were you a rebellious teenager or an angsty teenager? I was... I find it hard to imagine if you were. I wasn't. I was kind of... And still I'm quite quiet and a lot of what I feel and think is internal and can come out in the music. But I think a lot of Shostakovich's music, a lot of the exploration is inward, which I was drawn to definitely as a teenager and still am. In an interview, your mum said that you were the naughtiest of the seven children. As a child, when I was like a child. I think now when I'm older, that's not so much the case. But certainly, yeah, as a child, I was always running around and climbing on things.

19:34And if there was a sign or an indication that I wasn't allowed to do something, that was often a motivation. I was then even more fascinated to do it, to climb on that, to go over that fence that says... It's that challenge again, isn't it? Yes, yes, maybe. You know, the Shostakovich cello concerto has become that bookcase that you're not supposed to climb up. Yeah, and I think it's because until I've climbed it, I don't know what the danger is and what it feels like to do it. So that was often my approach. Shostakovich was denounced by Stalin and Rostropovich himself was exiled in the 1970s from the Soviet Union.

20:13And both of those musicians are associated with political dissent, with resistance, with protest. How aware do you have to be of that history to understand the music, to play this music, do you think? You do have to be very aware because this is what is in the music.

20:39To know and to understand the feelings of resistance and often of desperation, of fear, is important in order to get to the core of what this music is saying. It's often a very dark and uncomfortable place to spend a lot of time. I remember practising before I was recording the second concerto of Shostakovich. I had about a month and a half off without any concerts. and so I was just practising this piece and I was really getting into it and I'd have to really take moments in the middle of the day to go for a walk and breathe because it was so consuming and such a dark and terrifying place to spend a lot of time with it has like a genuine effect of course and should on the performer and on the audience

21:35In 1968, on the very day that Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia, the BBC proms that night, Rostropovich played Vozhek's cello concerto. It was a hugely emotional, powerful moment, apparently.

21:55Yes, that is a performance that would have, of course, would have been special. and Rostaprovich has such a wonderful way of communicating emotion in a way that really feels open and generous.

22:17I think you've played that Wojciak cello concerto at the proms yourself. I have. 2021, I think it was. Yeah, it's a piece I've not performed that much and find very challenging, but I do love one that I would like to spend more time with What's it like walking out at the proms as a solo performer? It's one of the biggest thrills that I've had it's an amazing arena and to walk out into a space that you really feel that the love and celebration of music is so much at the heart of that festival and as a spectacle it's quite You're literally surrounded by people Yeah, it's quite overwhelming and very special