DON'T CALL HIM MELLOW CELLO

posted by James Reel

    Harry, my cello teacher, called early yesterday afternoon to cancel this week’s lesson; he was frantically preparing to leave town for a week and a half. Fine, I told him; I’d fill the open cello slot on my schedule by reviewing Pieter Wispelwey’s new set of the Beethoven cello sonatas and variations on Channel Classics. Harry merely grunted. When pressed to elaborate, he groused about Wispelwey’s capricious interpretive choices, not to mention his tone. “He doesn’t even make it sound like a cello!” he complained. Then, with a laugh, “Our instrument has gone downhill since Jacqueline Du Pré bit the dust.”
    So I listened to Wispelwey’s two-disc set, a beautifully recorded SACD release, immediately heard what Harry was talking about, but failed to share his exasperation. Here’s the gist of the review I’ll be sending Strings magazine today:

    Pieter Wispelway’s new Beethoven survey won’t change anybody’s mind about this high-profile Dutch cellist. Indeed, the very same passages can illustrate the arguments of his detractors as well as his supporters. Do you believe Wispelwey belongs to the new “mannerist” group of players, tugging at phrasing and dynamics on whim rather than according to musical logic? Or do you believe he illuminates too-familiar scores with unexpected detail, surprising articulation and hairpin dynamic swells and fades? Whichever, here’s your evidence.
    Me, after years of preferring the refinement of the likes of Pierre Fournier, I find Wispelwey refreshing. Make no mistake: These aren’t “the” Beethoven sonatas, they’re Wispelwey’s Beethoven sonatas (although I don’t mean this to slight pianist Dejan Lazi’s expert partnership). Unless you just can’t stand Wispelwey’s rather wiry period-instrument tone (even though he’s playing a “modern” 1760 Guadagnini for this, his second Beethoven cycle), you should listen to this recording if only to reinforce your prejudices.