Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich

For the conclusion of his residency as “artiste étoile,” Sheku Kanneh-Mason has taken up a genuine challenge: the First Cello Concerto by Dmitri Shostakovich, which will demand all the finesse of his playing technique and hardly allow him a break. He even has to play the third movement entirely on his own, without the support of the orchestra. This ambiguous work also poses a number of interpretive challenges: motoric obsession and lamento-like melodies suggest that Shostakovich was thinking here of his own fate in the Soviet Union, which had bridled him for decades and threatened him with imprisonment or worse. The second half of the evening belongs to Shostakovich’s great idol Gustav Mahler. Conductor Paavo Järvi provided one of the highlights last summer with his performance leading the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in the Third Symphony, setting “completely new standards,” according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. This time, the Estonian maestro presents Mahler’s First, a work teeming with the sounds of nature, ländler dances, and echoes of klezmer, as well as the famous children’s tune Frère Jacques. For the Zurich- based Tonhalle-Orchester, this will almost be a home game!