Decca CD Reviews
Shostakovich: Cello Concertos 1&2
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Pablo Heras-Casado
The Strad
“Masterly though Rostropovich’s recordings of Shostakovich’s cello concertos unquestionably are, his tendency to live through every note as though it might be his final utterance can feel overwrought at times. Alisa Weilerstein is no less physically propulsive and passionately committed, yet she imbues these scores with such a compelling sense of emotional narrative that it seems as though one were hearing the music for the first time.
Traditional readings of the First Concerto tend to be delivered at high voltage and emerge almost unremittingly from the ‘dark side’. By comparison, Weilerstein fearlessly explores the music’s rich vein of humanity so that it becomes less a sustained cry of anguish than a fully fleshed-out and deeply affecting sequence of poetic metaphors. She uncovers a warmth and tenderness in the Moderato second movement that makes the music with which it is surrounded feel all the more terrifying.
In her mesmerising account of the Second Concerto, her ability to mine the music’s expressive core is striking. Pablo Heras-Casado and the Bavarian RSO follow her every inch of the way and the engineering strikes a balance between warmth and detail.”
Hi-Fi Choice London (Jimmy Hughes)
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard these two concertos played with such attack and ferocity. Tempi are fast, and the soloist’s articulation is something to marvel at. Both performances are very intense and deeply felt, and the music exudes a white-hot immediacy . . . Clarity is excellent, and you can hear every detail . . . overall, the balance sounds natural and open, with a warm tonal bloom to the strings and winds.”
Audiophile Audition (Robert Moon)
“Riveting performances . . . [Cello Concerto no. 1]: The initial theme sung by the cello appears throughout the work becomes powerful and memorable. She renders the sad beginning of the second movement soulfully, then ends in a cloak of eerie desolation. A lengthy cadenza — a rondo separated by pizzicatos, ensues. This movement of still darkness gives way to shrieking woodwinds echoed by horns that begins the final movement. Here Weilerstein lets loose with a manic explosion that makes the ending exhilarating . . . [Cello Concerto no. 2]: The variety of moods and the composer’s brilliant orchestration make this a very powerful work. Weilerstein’s passion and sensitivity make this a recording to savor. The recording balance captures the interplay between cello and orchestra with rich clarity . . . Weilerstein and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado have set a modern standard for these masterpieces.”
The Daily Telegraph London (Ivan Hewett)
“. . . [in the 1st concerto Weilerstein] has a huge authority and massive tone which saves the furious-passages from sounding merely febrile . . . in the 2nd movement she gives the second melody an uncanny purity . . . as if the cello is opening a window on to a better world. Weilerstein gives this a lovely understated quality, and it’s only in the furious climax towards the end that she lets herself off the leash. It’s a startling moment which makes the final bleached-out ending even more impressive.”
Wholenote Magazine Toronto (David Olds)
“. . . [he recordings] are both impeccable . . . Try as I might I can’t hear any evidence of the audience, but there is certainly the dynamic sense of excitement of a live performance. I’m very happy to add this new offering to my collection.”
Classical Voice North America (Paul E. Robinson)
“A bona fide world-class soloist, with this fine new recording on a major label, Weilerstein can fairly claim to be the most outstanding cellist to emerge in America since Yo-Yo Ma . . . her performance of each one on this CD is technically superb and deeply communicative . . . [Cello Concerto no. 1]: Weilerstein shows that she is now totally inside the piece . . . Heras-Casado gets fully committed performances from the Bavarian orchestra and is clearly on the same wavelength as his soloist. Weilerstein’s intensity never lets up, and she makes every note count in the long cadenza . . . [Cello Concerto no. 2]: Weilerstein’s performance of the Second Concerto is magnificent. She manages the fearsome technical demands with no obvious strain and powerfully conveys the sense of struggling against one’s fate before succumbing to the inevitable. Again, Heras-Casado and his players do their part, going all out in the massive orchestral tutti in the final movement. This long, complex, and richly expressive movement has never sounded more coherent or lingered in the memory so long afterwards. The recording quality is outstanding.”
San Francisco Chronicle (Joshua Kosman)
“. . . at her finest, Weilerstein brings a rare and combustible eloquence to a range of repertoire, and her new recording of the two Shostakovich concertos with conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is often powerful and even mesmerizing . . . The First Concerto gets an agile and athletic reading here, full of dark energy and crisp rhythms, but it also has a hectoring edge as well as the tonal rawness that is a Weilerstein trademark. The real glory of the disc is the Second Concerto . . . Weilerstein and Heras-Casado make the broad first movement into an exquisitely personal rhapsody, at once introspective and urgent; the puckish feints and mood switches of the final movement sound surprisingly cogent.”ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
“. . . everything goes right . . . the energized young Pablo Heras-Casado takes the podium, and wrings every dark, twitchy, sardonic drop of color from Shostakovich’s carefully judged musical lines. So, for that matter, does Weilerstein. She attacks the First Concerto with abandon, employing swift tempos, sharp accents, and a level of what can only be called “neurotic precision” perfect in this music. Best of all is the slowish second movement, here a true moderato that builds to climaxes of powerful lyrical intensity. She also paces the long cadenza in such a way that it truly holds together and spills over naturally into the finale . . . Weilerstein is just as persuasive in the less popular Second Concerto . . . Her shaping of the long, rhapsodic opening slow movement couldn’t be better. Yes, the music is brooding, but also soulful and flowing. The quirky central scherzo and final variations, bound together as a unit, take us back into territory more similar to the First Concerto, and we have already heard how comfortable Weilerstein is there. She’s especially pointed in the fanfare and march elements that pervade this music — sharp but never unmusical — and the way she comes to rest on that long final note under ticking percussion, fading to almost nothing before a last, sudden crescendo, has got to be just what the composer ordered. It only remains to be said that the engineering, finally, gives Weilerstein the canvas that she deserves on which to work. The balance rightly offers her solo prominence, but never at the expense of the orchestra . . . There are now many excellent versions of these concertos, both individually and together, but this release more than justifies the duplication.”
MusicWeb International (Dave Billinge)
“This remarkable young cellist achieves something I would not expect from any performer in these circumstances . . . These two performances are unique in countless ways. Her tempos are not the same as other cellists. She sometimes interprets the marked dynamics in the score in unexpected, yet justifiable ways. Tiny unwritten diminuendos and crescendos are almost a trademark here and the splendid Bavarian Radio Symphony follow her closely . . . It is all quite fascinating to hear . . . both performances have the electricity of an uninterrupted rendering . . . In case anyone thinks this replaces Rostropovich I must emphasize it does not . . . I would, however, urge all Shostakovich enthusiasts to purchase this magnificent CD as well . . . this CD is clean and clear and has a considerable amount of spaciousness . . . The subtle use of percussion is present without being thrust in one’s face and Weilerstein’s cello is allowed a very wide dynamic range without ever disappearing.”
Financial Times London (Richard Fairman)
“Weilerstein responds with playing that puts a premium on subtlety and inner intensity. What we have here is not a typically spontaneous Rostropovich bearhug, more a deeply considered embrace.”
Rachmaninov/Chopin: Cello Sonatas
Inon Barnatan
Sinfini Music **** (Norman Lebrecht)
“A musical conversation between equals, cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan bring passion and drama to chamber works by Chopin and Rachmaninov.”
The Guardian **** (Erica Jeal)
“Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan are well paired in this disc of sonatas by composers better known for piano music, both writing for cellists who were their close friends. Rachmaninov’s mammoth Cello Sonata was written in 1901, as was the Piano Concerto No 2. Weilerstein brings to it an expansive, sweeping lyricism, with a surprising amount of tone in reserve for the big moments. Barnaton’s playing is just as eloquent: beautifully light and supple one moment, biting the next, always nuanced, and steering the music surely. The Chopin Sonata, a valedictory work, gets just the right balance of doubt and resolve; the long first movement has a searching quality that really holds the ear. There are also three shorter concert pieces, including a transcription of Chopin’s piano Étude in C sharp minor which, with Weilerstein’s long, singing phrases and juicy slides, sounds as much a song without words as does Rachmaninov’s Vocalise.”
SOLO CD
“The performance [Kodaly Solo Sonata] is superb: totally secure in technique, rich in sonority, compellingly idiomatic in its rhapsodising, and exhilarating in the passages representing an entire band of village musicians.”
*****Anthony Burton, BBC Music Magazine
“The American virtuoso digs into Kodaly’s opening movement with the muscularity of a restless gravedigger and sustains fervid energy through to the finale, a half-crazed molto vivace that she treats with the colours of a small orchestra.”
**** Mark Valencia, Sinfini
“Weilerstein rises to the challenge with an arresting physicality.”
**** Claudia Pritchard, The Independent
“A widely varied programme that showcases her astonishing virtuosity.”
Steve Arloff, Music Web International
“Alisa Weilerstein is everything you’d want in a cello soloist: powerful sound, dynamite technique, intelligent interpretative personality. Weilerstein’s playing is authoritative throughout but in the Sheng, she’s revelatory. She manages to evoke the soundscape of Chinese traditional music – using a bare timbre, micro-variations in pitch, feathery bowing that scarcely grazes the strings, and a whole suite of non-standard techniques – while also making the most of the deep, flowing sound that only a cello can produce.”
David Larsen, The Metro
Dvorak Cello Concerto
Czech Philharmonic / Jiri Belohlavek
The Daily Telegraph ***** (Geoffrey Norris)
In the concerto, the Czech orchestra and conductor, for whom this music must
be second nature, establish a backcloth that is warm, luminous and animated by a tangy freshness, as indeed is the playing of Weilerstein. Hers is an interpretation of passion. It is by no means heart-on-sleeve but, rather, it is distinguished by well-harnessed vigour and attack, susceptibility to the music’s lyrical heart, and by a range of tone that traces the concerto’s expressive contours with the assurance, sweep and attention to nuance that derive both from mature artistry and from a deep understanding of the music’s emotional trajectory. There is a spine-tingling thrill and generosity of feeling to this performance that make it irresistible.
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times
“Following her remarkable Decca debut coupling of the Elgar and Elliott Carter concertos with Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle Berlin, we now get this glorious account of the Dvorak concerto from Weilerstein…Her musicianship amply evokes the composer’s nostalgic love of the natural world. The concerto was written during his American sojourn, but it lives and breathes the air of the Czech countryside and its music. She has chosen ideal partners in Belohlavek and the Czech Philharmonic: the first movement’s horn solo is almost as gorgeous as Weilerstein’s big-hearted, impassioned, yet, when necessary, introspective playing, and she gives way to the “woodland” clarinet, oboe and flute solos in the passages where the cello accompanies them. This is an account to rank with accounts by Rostropovich, Fournier and du Pré, sumptuously recorded by Decca’s engineers.”
Elgar & Carter Cello Concerti
Staatskapelle Berlin / Daniel Barenboim
Norman Lebrecht – *****
“For sheer courage, strong convictions and fabulous playing, nothing less than five stars will do…I find her reinterpretation of the concerto utterly convincing”
BBC Music Magazine – Recording of the Month ***** (Calum MacDonald)
“Each concerto is a masterwork in its own terms and together they add up to a superb showcase for the talents of a gifted soloist … Weilerstein avoids nostalgia and produces instead an account that is full of passion, grief and nobility of feeling.”
The Mail on Sunday – ***** (David Mellor)
“This performance demands to be heard by any Elgarian, and for me, takes its place at or near the top of the list.”
The Financial Times – ***** (Andrew Clark)
“The young American invests the musical line with the sort of judicious portamento that was out of fashion 50 years ago, and she captures a nervous energy in the second movement … The reading has warmth, temperament, lyrical intensity: Weilerstein makes the Adagio really sing, without lapsing into sentimentality.”
The Times – **** (Geoff Brown)
“Within the first seconds, we know that Weilerstein speaks with her own voice. The muscular bowing, the sound’s depth and warmth in the opening bars: you couldn’t ask for a more characterful beginning … This is an extremely exciting and rewarding account.”
Gramophone Magazine (Peter Dickinson)
“The changing moods of the Scherzo are perfectly caught; the Adagio is effective … and the last Lento in the finale makes an emotional climax … Her developing band of fans will devour this CD.”
The Strad – The Strad Recommends (Tim Homfray)
“This is a noble performance, warm, heartfelt and splendidly played. She is magisterial and dignified in the opening movement, and shows terrific light-footed rhythmic felicity in the second … Weilerstein produces muscular, passionate playing in Carter’s Concerto … She handles Carter’s technical demands with aplomb.”
Independent – **** (Andy Gill)
“She grasps the Elgar from the opening of the Adagio Moderato and stamps her character upon it.”
The Guardian – **** (Andrew Clements)
“Weilerstein’s approach is impressively bold and big-boned…Weilerstein characterises its [Carter] sequence of linked movement types wonderfully”
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