Sheku's Shostakovich

Finally caught up with the BBC Young Musician 2016 finale on the iPlayer, watching in segments after evenings out on Thursday and Friday, and it was blindingly obvious: 17-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason's performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto with Mark Wigglesworth conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra was one which would go straight to top of any year's best list, regardless of the circumstances. All Young Musician 2016 images by Mark Allen/BBC.

It baffles me how this sweet, seemingly diffident teenager becomes a channel for everything I've ever thought the music was about the minute he applies bow to cello. He can change colour as well as dynamic on a note. Above all the big cadenza just spoke to us like the great Shakespearean soliloquy it is (have never forgotten Oistrakh's characterisation of the solo role in the First Violin Concerto as Hamlet-like). Spellbound by all this, and seeing it all in SKM's face, it was easy to overlook how he had the best partners in the world. The wind in the first movement were uniquely bouncy and spiky, the Wigglesworth touch as we know from his Shostakovich symphonies cycle, and as Julian Lloyd-Webber pointed out, the crucial horn solos can never have been better played (kudos to the fabulous Nicholas - not David, Clemency, please - Korth).  Here's the whole thing on YouTube, courtesy of the justifiably proud father. Two minutes from the official BBC site is not enough.

No less communicative was the delightful saxophonist Jess Gillam. Only two problems about the final here, for me, at any rate - the shortage of great saxophone-and-orchestra pieces, which meant we got the quickly numbing Nyman Where the Bee Dances; and the amount of time you can listen with pleasure to the soprano sax (for me, at least given the score, not very long). Below: Gillam on the left, with wise mentor and former winner Nicola Benedetti second from right).

As for fine horn-player Ben Goldscheider (above on the right), the only face on the screen who spoke truth was Wigglesworth, in declaring that it was the most difficult of all instruments - and I would add, the most difficult to play smoothly when you're nervous. And why wouldn't our finalist be nervous? It seemed as if the splendid Sarah Willis, horn-player with the Berlin Phil and a presenter so good I've already asked if we could see her on the BBC, had been gagged into singing only praise, so I did a double take when she said how supremely relaxed he was. Not so. Surely an expert can make critical points without undermining the essential fabulousness of it all?

Anyway, Barenboim has taken Goldscheider under his wing, so he'll be fine. As will the other two - and I want to see more of the incredible Kanneh-Mason von Trapps, instrumentalists all (the parents are pianists). Here they are playing the most famous of the Brahms Hungarian Dances.

There's going to have to be an hour-long doc on the Kanneh-Masons. But on BBCs One or Two, please; it's a disgrace that this antidote to Eurovision appeared on ghetto BBC Four. Apparently the family did get to the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent, but I wouldn't know about that, would I? And semi-finals only? Please.

Saw all too much of Eurovision on the TV in our Prague apartment - all I have to say is that Jamala, the winner for Ukraine with 1944, was worthy not so much because of her origins as Crimean Tatar but because she was the only one to connect with what she was singing about in a risible show of artifice and overkill.

To conclude, an outcry and a celebration. It's right that there has been horror at EU withdrawal of suuport for the European Union Youth Orchestra (pictured above). They shouldn't have to compete with other organisations for funding; they ARE the musical flagship of the Union (and a great orchestra by any standards, as their stunning 2014 Prom showed). True, other organisations like the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra raise their own money. But - repeat - it's fundamentally wrong that this most splendid of ensembles should have to go through the bureaucratic hoops for their survival (or, in this case, their demise). In the meantime, you can sign several petitions: try this one on Avaaz.

Congratulations, finally, to the ENO Chorus; having garnered one trophy at the Olivier Awards, they sealed their worldwide credentials by winning at the International Opera Awards. And this time the right people were there to claim the trophy. Deborah Davison of the Chorus (in the centre with the award in the above picture) gave a superb speech, putting much of the credit where it was due here:

The ENO chorus is an extraordinary and passionate group of artists who form the essential lifeblood of our ensemble company. Through good or challenging times, our desire to be the very best we can never wavers and we are thrilled and immensely proud that our work has been recognised in this way.

On behalf of the Chorus, I'd like to thank four people who have been instrumental in our recent work. Our indefatigable Chorus Manager, David Dyer, a man who embodies everything that is great about ENO. Our brilliant and inspiring Chorus Master, Stephen Harris, and superb Assistant Chorus Master, James Henshaw, who have lifted the musical excellence of the Chorus to an all time high. And finally our much loved and respected Director of Music, Mark Wigglesworth, a man of immense integrity and unparalleled musicianship. We have been honoured and privileged to make joyous music with him.

Amen to that. Got a little moist-eyed transcribing it. Fingers crossed that this relationship proves too strong to be thrown away permanently.

Requiem for ENO?

I sincerely hope not, and I still want to keep the flame of hope alive by continuing to help fight where possible for the survival of a full company as well as a full season. It seems from what chorus members told me on Friday night after their stunning third performance of Brahms's A German Requiem at St John's Waterloo - my colleague Alexandra Coghlan captured the atmosphere of the first event beautifully here - that new Artistic Director Daniel Kramer wants a full season too. I've stated as much in an article on The Arts Desk giving a cautious welcome. Sincere good luck to him if he, too, is sincere - I'd be amazed if he succeeded where Mark Wigglesworth failed in persuading the intransigent CEO that only by such means can a true English National Opera keep up its superlative, award-winning work.

This German Requiem, performed in the version in English with two pianists at one keyboard - the form it took at its 1871 London premiere - transfigured a work which can seem too gloomy and gloopy in the wrong hands. It still felt a bit that way to J, hearing it for the first time, but I assured him that no-one could have done more to strip away the layers of thick paint than Wigglesworth. Yes, the fugal passages were fast, the last stupendously so, but it never felt rushed even though it clocked in at around the 55 minute mark.

The harmonic relationships between movements were helped by no long pauses; the text was clear and meaningful - with the exception of Eleanor Dennis's radiant but more or less wordless solo; Benedict Nelson's contribution was of a piece with the chorus - simply because Wigglesworth made sure his chorus shaped each phrase towards its natural stress. Nothing could have been more momentous than the 'joy everlasting's of the second movement. Everything was tied together most movingly in the final 'Blessed are the dead', emphasising the sheer strength of the individual sections and with some spectacularly powerful unisons. And one hardly missed the orchestra in the flawless piano duo of ENO music staff treasures Kate Golla and Chris Hopkins (bowing with their bouquets in the second image from the gallery above).

Emotional meetings afterwards. I met up with Jane Livingston, the best of press officers during her long years of service for ENO, to collect my rose oil from Kashan (I'd asked her to get one for me on her recent trip to Iran; my tiny bottle of purest attar from the Kashan bazaar long having been used up, and a replacement not found in any of London's Iranian shops). It might have been a bit de trop of me to make Richard Jones, Mark and his wife Annemieke sniff it ('Turkish delight?' guessed Richard - close, of course). Was also delighted to see the chorus members who had helped me put their side of the argument on The Arts Desk, and to meet face to face at last the joint recipients of the Mackerras Conducting Fellowship I'd helped to adjudicate, Toby Purser and Matthew Waldren.

One familiar face from the chorus said that he'd never before encountered a conductor who could change the entire sound with a flick of the wrist. As postscript to return the compliment, I want to include some wonderful lines from two conductors. From Mark Wigglesworth, first in the programme, following carefully-selected observations on the work being performed:

An opera chorus spend their working lives revealing the full range of humanity on the stage. I know no finer exponents of this than the Chorus of English National Opera. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and to thank especially their manager David Dyer and their Chorus Master Stephen Harris. It was their ideas that were the inspiration for these concerts and it is their leadership that continues to inspire us all.

And in private, reproduced with his consent, he wrote that he was

Conscious of what we have lost but right now even more conscious of the extraordinary relationship that has developed between the choristers and me. No-one can or will take that away from us.

Finally, from Toby Purser, again made privately and given with his consent:

To see a chorus in tears of emotion at the end of a performance, with a level of communication, respect and integrity almost impossible to imagine, is breathtakingly inspiring, but also a genuine torture - like having a glimpse of the ultimate artistic potential, only to see it withdrawn afterwards. 

Amen to that, and let's live in hope that the knight on his white charger mentioned by one of the chorus members and quoted in the Kramer piece will come riding back in glory. We can dream, can't we?