Cello Concerto

Program notes

About the Work

This Cello Concerto is a new work written for Sheku Kanneh-Mason and jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Kanneh-Mason gave the world premiere with the LA Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall on 21 November 2025. Tonight the LSO plays its share of that commission: a chance to hear a significant new concerto by a living British composer, played by the cellist it was written for.

Finnis has called it “the most lyrical, intense and emotionally direct music that I have written so far”, and it is tailored to Kanneh-Mason’s particular gifts: his singing tone, his lyrical warmth, his unforced directness. Finnis’s music is celebrated for its shimmering textures and its clarity, so expect the solo cello less as a combatant battling the orchestra than as a singing voice that emerges from glowing instrumental colour and dissolves back into it. At around twenty-five minutes, it moves from introspective beauty to passages of powerful, sustained energy. Here it is framed by the vast Romantic spirituality of Bruckner.

What to Listen For

As a very new work, come to it with fresh ears and no expectations of famous tunes. With Finnis, the rewards lie in colour, texture and line. Listen for the way the solo cello sings long, expressive melodies (Finnis writes beautifully for the voice-like quality of the instrument), and for the finely detailed orchestral textures that surround it, often delicate and luminous rather than heavy.

Listen for the relationship between soloist and orchestra: how the cello emerges from the ensemble, is echoed and coloured by it, and how Finnis builds atmosphere and momentum through shifting harmony and instrumental light rather than through conventional display. Above all, listen to Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s tone, warm, lyrical and deeply communicative, in music written to show it off. It is a rare opportunity to hear a new concerto near the very start of its life, in the hands of the cellist it was written for.