Beethoven: Triple Concerto; Folk Songs (Concerto Choice – July 2024)
Nicholas Kenyon enjoys the energy of Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Nicola Benedetti and Benjamin Grosvenor in his review of the Beethoven Triple Concerto...
Beethoven
Triple Concerto; Folk Songs*
Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Nicola Benedetti (violin), Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), *Gerald Finley (bass-baritone); Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Decca 485 4624 56:12 mins
There are surely no more charismatic young performers in this country today than violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, and together they make a stellar team, bursting with energy and expressive precision.
Kanneh-Mason launches the opening movement wistfully, with a gentle portamento in the first phrase, while Benedetti answers with a steely, shining tone and not a hint of a slide. But they match perfectly in the energetic passagework that can be so often clouded in live performance but is super-clear in this recording, while Grosvenor mediates perfectly between them with luminous playing and little rhythmic hesitations that map out the shape of the piece.
'Santtu-Matias Rouvali keeps things on a tight leash'
The Largo is perhaps a couple of notches too slow, but Kanneh-Mason sweeps aside doubts with the main theme; his cello is often called upon to sing at the very top of its register and does so with yearning eloquence. The Rondo finale scurries along with crisp virtuosity and youthful exuberance; accompanying, the Philharmonia Orchestra sounds rather large for the purpose, but Santtu-Matias Rouvali keeps it firmly leashed.
The album adds a selection from Beethoven’s many arrangements of Scottish, Welsh and Irish folk songs, sung with an admirable lack of sentimentality by bass-baritone Gerald Finley. These are honestly not especially interesting arrangements: could we have hoped for a violin sonata or a cello sonata? There is a deliciously kitsch encore, however, in Kriesler’s arrangement of the Londonderry Air. Nicholas Kenyon