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RECITAL REVIEW
March 21, 2006
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Accessible Idiosyncrasy By John Lutterman
Although their program consisted entirely of mainstream 20th century cello
sonatas, Tuesday's performance by Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and pianist
Dejan Lazic at Herbst Theatre was more in the character of a
Liederabend than of a conventional cello recital. The physical
deportment of the musicians contributed to this sense in an obvious way,
particularly Wispelwey's habit of performing from memory, which eliminates
the barrier between performer and audience that a music stand inevitably
presents. Yet, the most strikingly vocal aspect of the performance was the
exceptional degree of attention given to the thoughtful shaping of every
subtle nuance of phrasing. Wispelwey, who is also a fine Baroque cellist, came
of age during the heyday of the Dutch early music movement, which must
certainly account for much of his skill in intelligently navigating interpretive
details. But in Tuesday's program, the range of color, drama, and poetry
evoked the world of the great lieder performers, particularly Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau, whom Wispelwey has credited as an important influence.
Wispelwey, a prolific performer and recording artist, has managed to carve
out an unusual career for himself, attracting a devoted audience of
connoisseurs in the process. Eschewing the competition circuit, which so
often seems to grind away the individual creative personalities of modern
performers, Wispelwey's often idiosyncratic marathon concert performances
(complete works of Bach, Beethoven, Britten, and Brahms, all performed from
memory) attracted the attention of the Channel Classics record company,
which offered him carte blanche to undertake whatever projects he chose. As
a result, he has been able to maintain an international solo career playing
both modern and period instruments, something that few cellists have
accomplished — the British cellist Steven Isserlis being the other notable
exception. (Although Yo-Yo Ma has dabbled with Baroque cello and has
made some pleasant recordings with Ton Koopman, Ma has never really
made an effort to take advantage of the range of color and articulation that
period instruments offer.)
While Wispelwey's choice of repertoire has rarely been adventurous, his
performances have consistently given the kind of provocative readings that
encourage one to hear well-known works with fresh ears. Tuesday's concert,
which consisted of four of the most accessible 20th century cello sonatas,
offered just such an experience. The acoustics in Herbst are a bit dry for a
string recital, but Wispelwey and Lazic managed beautifully. Although the
piano lid was all the way up, balance was never a problem, even in
notoriously problematic pizzicato passages, and their dynamic range was
astonishing, with many expertly judged whispering pianissimos.
Wispelwey's and Lazic's highly inflected style of performance is not without its difficulties, for both performer and listener. When a performer lavishes such attention on the details of a composition, it more or less forces a listener to pay attention at a similar level, and there is always a risk that the unfolding of large-scale structures or the shaping of long, singing lines will be obscured in the process. Wispelwey and Lazic clearly have a sophisticated grasp of structure and line, and they gave extremely intelligent and moving performances. But their approach also presents greater challenges than a less nuanced style of performance would, particularly for listeners not already familiar with the repertoire. For a listener willing to accept these challenges, the experience is much like being drawn into a spontaneous discussion between the intelligent musical personalities of cellist, pianist, and composer. Benjamin Britten's five-movement sonata of 1961, which opened the program, was the least familiar composition of the evening. It is a genial piece, full of drama and clever allusions to ideas from other important 20th century works, with a Stravinskian march, references to Bartók's dark scurrying scherzos, Shostakovich's obsessive toying with short motivic ideas, and Debussy's sense of color and ironic wit — qualities that were well served by Wispelwey's quicksilver imagination and fine bow technique. He has an exceptionally broad range of articulations and colors at his disposal. The central movement of the sonata, an elegy, is Britten at his lyrical best, and here Wispelwey's subtle treatment was particularly effective. The Britten was a surprisingly effective way to open the program and proved a nice introduction to Debussy's sonata of 1915, another rather quirky piece, with lots of surprising, abrupt transitions. Debussy's score is notoriously difficult to decipher, with detailed performance instructions in practically every bar that demand careful interpretation yet require the performer to maintain a sense of spontaneous inspiration. For the most part, Wispelwey and Lazic negotiated these twists and turns deftly, but Wispelwey's rather willful sense of rubato occasionally resulted in a lugubrious rendering of lighter, more ornamental passages. Also surprising was his choice of a big, warm, Romantic sound in many of the more lyrical passages, rather than the lighter, more shimmering "French" sound one normally hears. Still, this was an intelligent, witty performance, and Wispelwey's idiosyncratic interpretive choices seemed designed to pose the question, "Well, why not?" Like the Britten, the remaining two sonatas on the program, by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, are both associated with Rostropovich, and they have been popular with both performers and audiences ever since they were written. The Prokofiev Sonata was among the first of many 20th century works dedicated to the Russian cellist, and while the Shostakovich was written in 1934, when Rostropovich was only seven, he quickly became a great champion of Shostakovich's music. Few cellists have managed to capture the enthusiastic, full-throated qualities of Rostropovich's advocacy of this music. While Wispelwey and Lazic took a more refined and thoughtful approach, their performances were equally energetic, personal, and enthusiastic, and they maintained a marvelously spontaneous quality throughout. It was wonderful to hear such a fresh approach to these familiar works. As a fitting conclusion to this cellistic Liederabend, the encore was an eloquent performance of the lyrical slow movement of Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata.
(John Lutterman is a cellist and musicologist. He holds a D.M.A. from SUNY
Stony Brook and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in historical musicology at UC
Davis.)
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Pieter Wispelwey
