Gramophone Magazine
June 2025
Editor's Choice

Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Sinfonia of London, John Wilson, Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano)

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 126
Britten: Sonata for cello and piano in C major, Op. 65
Shostakovich: Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40

Decca Classics proudly announces Shostakovich & Britten, the new album from internationally acclaimed cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, set for release on 9th May 2025. Featuring Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2, performed with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London, alongside the cello sonatas of Shostakovich and Britten, this deeply personal recording pays tribute to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the towering figure who inspired both composers—and Kanneh-Mason himself.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason has a long-standing connection and affinity to Rostropovich and Shostakovich. His 2018 debut album, Inspiration, featured Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto —the piece that secured his victory at the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition and launched his international career. The album made chart history, making him the youngest cellist ever, at 18 years old, to break into the Top 20 of the UK Official Album Chart. Now, seven years later, he returns to the composer’s music with Cello Concerto No. 2, an introspective masterpiece composed for Rostropovich in 1966, and the Sonata in D minor, written in 1934 for Viktor Kubatsky. “This concerto is a piece I’ve loved and studied for a long time,” Kanneh-Mason reflects. “It contains some of the most beautiful and sweetest moments in music, as well as some of the darkest and bleakest. To have all of that within one piece is very powerful.”

Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s performance captures the raw vulnerability and unrelenting depth of Shostakovich’s writing. Reflecting on the recording process, he recalls: “It was very intense spending seven hours in a world of emotions that have a genuine effect on me. John is always searching for more, and the orchestra was invested in every note, which is really the dream for this piece.”

"The uniqueness of the present coupling is hardly the least of its assets. With sound of unfailing definition and focus, it demonstrably takes Kanneh-Mason’s standing on to a whole new level." - Gramophone Magazine, June 2025