Pieter Wispelwey, cello and Dejan Lazić, piano 02/16/07
Friday, February 16, 2007
7:30 P.M. (please note!)
Center for the Arts, Concert Hall
Pieter Wispelwey, cello and Dejan Lazić, piano
The last time this duo played at Middlebury, a highlight of their program was a Beethoven sonata. They have recorded all of Beethoven’s music for cello and piano: five sonatas plus three glorious sets of variations (two sets on themes from Mozart’s Magic Flute, and another set on a theme by Handel.) Now they play this whole collection of Beethoven music for us. They are remarkable musical partners, and this music is a feast of melody, instrumental virtuosity, and Beethovenian genius. Please note the early starting time of 7:30 p.m.
Performing Arts Series Director Paul Nelson commented, "We first heard Pieter Wispelwey here many years ago, before the Center for the Arts’ Concert Hall was even a gleam in an architect’s eye (or a tone in an acoustical engineer’s ear). He played a program, in Mead Chapel, of two unaccompanied suites by Bach and two suites by Benjamin Britten. We felt then, and we still feel now, that there is no cellist like him. His is an unmistakable sound and style: lean, aristocratic playing that calls attention to the phrases of the music rather than to the sublimely beautiful sounds that come from this instrument. (His cello is a Guadagnini, which he bought at auction in London just days before he played here last time.) He has been playing the past few seasons in an especially fruitful partnership with pianist Dejan Lazić; the two cooperate
remarkably.
Their recent Alice Tully Hall performance of this program—all of Beethoven’s music for cello and piano, including all five sonatas and three charming suites of variations, two on themes by Mozart, one on a theme by Handel—drew splendid reviews in the New York press. This ambitious program merits an earlier than usual starting time!"
Reserved Seating: $15/12/5. http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Pre-performance dinner: Rehearsals Cafe, 6:00 P.M. Reservations required. http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Concert Program:
ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM
Sonata in F Major, Op. 5, No. 1
Adagio sostenuto – Allegro
Rondo: Allegro vivace
Variations in F Major on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen,” from Die Zauberflöte, Op. 66
Sonata in G minor, Op. 5, No. 2
Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo
Allegro molto più tosto presto
Rondo: Allegro
Intermission
Sonata in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1
Andante
Allegro vivace
Adagio – Tempo d’andante
Allegro vivace
Variations in E-flat Major on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen,” from Die Zauberflöte, WoO.46
Sonata in D Major, Op. 102, No. 2
Allegro con brio
Adagio con molto sentimento d’affetto
Allegro fugato
Intermission
Variations in G Major on “See the conqu’ring hero comes,” from Judas Maccabaeus, WoO.45
Sonata in A Major, Op. 69
Allegro ma non tanto
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Adagio cantabile
Allegro vivace
For program notes, please contact Events and Residency Manager Allison Coyne Carroll at carroll@middlebury.edu
Artist Biographies:
Pieter Wispelwey is among the first of a generation of performers who are equally at ease on the modern or the period cello. His acute stylistic awareness, combined with a truly original interpretation and a phenomenal technical mastery, has won the hearts of critics and public alike in repertoire ranging from JS Bach to Elliott Carter.
Born in Haarlem, Netherlands, Wispelwey’s sophisticated musical personality is rooted in the training he received: from early years with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam to Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in Great Britain. In 1992 he became the first cellist ever to receive the Netherlands Music Prize, which is awarded to the most promising young musician in the Netherlands.
Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and is continuously gaining momentum, with regular recital appearances in London (Wigmore Hall), Paris (Châtelet), Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Los Angeles (Walt Disney Hall) and New York (Lincoln Center).
Recent highlights included residencies at New York’s 2004 Mostly Mozart Festival, Amsterdam Concertgebouw’s Robeco Series, the Lanaudiere Festival in Canada and an extensive recital tour of Japan.
Over the next two years, Wispelwey’s recital appearances include the Aldeburgh, Gstaad, Nürnberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Bern, Stresa, Flanders, Jerusalem and Povoa de Varzim
(Portugal) festivals, tours of Germany (including Berlin Konzerthaus) and North America (San Francisco, New York Lincoln Center, Montreal, Quebec), as well as Milan’s Societa del Quartetto, London’s Wigmore Hall, Valencia, Zaragoza, Tokyo, Seoul, Bogotà and Mexico City.
He has duo partnership with pianist Dejan Lazic, with whom he has toured worldwide, and their recordings consistently attract the highest praise from the international press. In the Fall of 2006, Wispelwey performs the complete of Beethoven for cello & piano with pianist Dejaz Lazic at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall as part of Great Performers at Lincoln Center’s Beethoven Festival. His Channel Classics recording of these works was selected by the New York Times as “one of the best” recordings for 2005.
Pieter Wispelwey has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Australian Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Camerata Salzburg, collaborating with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Vassily Sinaisky, Paavo Berglund, Louis Langrée, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman, Libor Pesek and Sir Roger Norrington.
In February 2005, Pieter Wispelwey began a five-year residency with the London Philharmonic Orchestra with a performance of Elgar’s Cello concerto at the Royal Festival Hall London. Future concerto engagements also include return engagements with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Yomiuri Orchestra, Mexico OFUNAM, debuts with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Danish National Radio Symphony and the Jerusalem Symphony, and extensive touring in the United States with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Pieter Wispelwey’s discography, available on Channel Classics, displays an impressive line up of over twenty recordings, six of which attracted major international awards. His most recent
release is the complete works for cello and piano by Beethoven with Dejan Lazic (March 2005).
Future recording projects include a Schubert recital disc and the Dvorak concerto with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer.
Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 cello by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini.
Recordings: available on CHANNEL CLASSICS
Exclusive Management: ARTS MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC., 37 W. 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
http://www.pieterwispelwey.com/
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Pianist Dejan Lazic was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and grew up in Salzburg where he studied at the Mozarteum. He is quickly establishing a reputation worldwide as “a brilliant pianist and a gifted musician full of ideas and able to project them persuasively” (Gramophone). The New York Times hailed his performance as “full of poetic, shapely phrasing and vivid dynamic effects that made this music sound fresh, spontaneous and impassioned”.
As recitalist and soloist with orchestra, he has appeared at major venues in Berlin, Paris, London, Vienna, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Sydney, and at the Edinburgh, Verbier, Huntington and Menuhin/Gstaad Festivals.
Upcoming orchestral engagements include the Philharmonia Orchestra London with Vladimir Ashkenazy, the London Philharmonic, and the Rotterdam and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, Australian and Netherlands Chamber Orchestras, Danish Radio Sinfonietta, SWR Kaiserslautern, Norrköping Symphony, Northern Sinfonia as well as recitals at New York’s
Lincoln Center, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Antwerp and the Schleswig-Holstein and Gstaad Menuhin Festivals. He has a growing following in the Far East where he returns in spring 2008 for engagements with the Sapporo Symphony, and he increasingly tours China and Korea.
Alongside his solo career, Dejan Lazic is also a passionate chamber musician and shares a long-standing partnership with cellist Pieter Wispelwey. He also collaborates with Gordan
Nikolic, Benjamin Schmid, Thomas Zehetmair and Richard Tognetti.
Dejan records for Channel Classics, where his latest recording of Schubert’s sonata D960 and his earlier Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 have earned rave reviews. With cellist Pieter
Wispelwey he has released a recording of the complete works for Cello and Piano by Beethoven, which was elected by The New York Times as one of the most notable releases of
2005.
Press Quotes:
"For those who wanted even more Beethoven.....Lincoln Center offered another marathon of that composer's works on sunday afternoon. At Alice Tully Hall the dynamic Dutch cellist Pieter
Wispelwey and his regular partner, the nimble-fingered Dejan Lazic, played Beethoven's complete works for cello and piano:five sonatas and three sets of variations....Still these
exceptional musicians, whose compelling recording of these Beethoven works was released last year by Channel Classics, had no trouble filling the hall...Mr Wispelwey and Mr Lazic
brought risk-taking adventurousness to all of these experimental sonatas. Mr Wispelwey's playing was full of vivid contrasts. One moment he shaped plaintive lyrical lines with almost no vibrato; the next he dug into the strings, producing gritty sounds, incisive attacks and blurry outbursts of energy. Yet every gesture seemed driven by musical insight.....The performers lost some of their listeners during the second intermission but most stayed to the end and awarded
the duo a prolonged standing ovation." --Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, October 2006
"Deeply communicative and highly individual performances." -- New York Times, 2004
"An outstanding cellist and a really wonderful musician" -- Gramophone, 2003
"An agile technique and complete engagement with the music" -- New York Times, 2001
