Growing up listening to Jacqueline du Pré’s landmark recording of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto has, for me at least, always put other performers at a disadvantage.

I have heard it played live a few times over the years, but whoever the soloist was, my subconscious would be making the comparison unbidden.

This all disappears when 27-year-old British cello superstar Sheku Kanneh-Mason places his hands on the fingerboard of his 1700 Matteo Goffriller instrument for the noble opening recitative that summons up the composer’s grief at the death and destruction of the Great War.

This is the start of a performance that can only be described as special – for its sweet lyrical tone, the depth of his musicality and his ability to sweep the audience away with the beauty of his playing.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the Sydmey Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Jay Patel

After the heady momentum of the first movement, Kanneh-Mason delivers the quicksilver fingering of the Allegro in the second movement with all the deftness of a Mendelssohn scherzo.

The broad and noble lines of the Adagio have just the right amount of vibrato, building to a lush and moving crescendo before...