On Tour in Bristol
Sir Antonio Pappano and Sheku Kanneh-Mason
Bristol Beacon
The Concert
Edmund Finnis
Cello Concerto (LSO co-commission) (25 mins)
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No 9 (60 mins)
(ed Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, Urtext Edition)
Sir Antonio Pappano conductor
Sheku Kanneh-Mason cello
London Symphony Orchestra
Available from Bristol Beacon
The Concert
The quiet intensity of Edmund Finnis’ Cello Concerto paves the way for Bruckner’s monumental, visionary symphonic statement.
The Music
Austrian composer Bruckner may have left his Symphony No 9 incomplete, but it still serves as a summation of his life, heard here in its three-movement form. The overwhelming Adagio stands as the work’s emotional, even religious, heart, while the pounding Scherzo is among the most bombastic and inspiring of anything Bruckner conceived.
The concert begins with the Cello Concerto of Edmund Finnis, a former LSO Helen Hamlyn Panufnik Composer. The composer describes the work as ‘the most lyrical, intense and emotionally direct music that I have written so far’. Over 20 minutes, Finnis runs the musical gamut of introspective beauty to outward, unrelenting energy.
The Performers
Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason is renowned for playing of expressive beauty and power – ideal qualities for Finnis’ shimmering tableaux, completed by the LSO and Sir Antonio Pappano who summons the Orchestra’s full might for the symphonic second half.
