VoxCarnyx

Cumnock Old Church

No need to worry when one of the extraordinary Kanneh-Mason clan call off a concert engagement. Among seven talented siblings there will always be one who can step into the breach. For this occasion – the now customary annual Cumnock Tryst Launch Recital – it was down to pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason to fill the shoes of her cello-playing older brother Sheku, currently recovering long-term from a persistent hand injury.

The event itself served two aims: for Festival founder and artistic director Sir James MacMillan to reveal his 4-day programme for the upcoming 2026 Cumnock Tryst Festival in October (see details here); and to fulfil the Tryst’s wider policy of programming one-off concerts throughout the year. 

On Saturday, nothing whatsoever was lost by the familial substitution. In her well-balanced hour-long Cumnock programme, 23-year-old Jeneba Kanneh-Mason glided through a sequence of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Florence Price that exhibited not only a supercharged technique, but also a deep-rooted curiosity of the music’s inner soul, its emotional and stylistic challenges, and most teasingly its intellectual surprises. 

She opened with Bach’s Partita No 5 in G. This was a performance that gripped from the moment she touched the keys, her finger work distinguished by exhilarating definition, her detailed interpretation akin to acute forensic analysis of the music’s inner workings. The directional flow over the seven movements was effortlessly compelling, the final Gigue arriving like some wild contrapuntal maelstrom. 

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in D minor, the so-called ‘Tempest’, provided more open space for Kanneh-Mason to explore. It’s a work dating from the composer’s troubled exile in Heiligenstadt, reflected in the questioning mood and contrasting tempi of the opening movement. There was certainly a structural understanding of that in Kanneh-Mason’s considered approach, its understated nature feeding over into a slow movement filled with lyrical eloquence, yet downplaying any suggestions of unrest in the left hand’s suggestive drum rolls. If by this point the sonata felt a little like work in progress for the pianist, she redeemed herself with a Finale brisling with dramatic verve. 

Two Chopin Ballades followed: No 3 in A flat, an easeful stream of Romantically-expressed storytelling, which the pianist delivered with easeful enchantment; and No 4 in F minor, an altogether more beguiling work, which Kanneh-Mason responded to with both Siren-like allure and fiery intensity. 

She ended her recital with Fantasie Nègre No 1 in E minor by the early 20th century African-American composer Florence Price. The piece itself invokes a menagerie of influences, a heavily-used spiritual – “Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass” – holding its own amid a swirling sea of Liszt, Brahms, snatches of Impressionism, hints of jazz, you name it. Not the most convincing piece of music, but saved by another flawless, persuasive performance from Kanneh-Mason.

Ken Walton