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Pieter's Shostakovich 2nd Concerto disc with Sinfonietta Cracovia is now out and already receiving excellent reviews. It will receive a Diapason D'Or in the december issue of the french music magazine Diapason this year, has a 4 star review in La Monde de la Musique and a 'Gramophone recommends' rating in Gramophone magazine this month.

"Pieter Wispelwey, even measured against the dedicatee of the work, Mstislav Rostropovich, delivers the greatest interpretation ever recorded of Britten's Suite No.3...

About the Shostakovich:
"After the recent versions, already remarkable, by Muller-Schott/Kreizberg and Maslennikov/Eschenbach, Pieter Wispelwey offers an interpretation which is even more perfect instrumentally and of a rare dramatic power....he eclipses all the other versions recorded since the "princeps" version by Gutamn/Terminkanov on RCA. Wispelwey gives a reading which is rigorously exact, but tense to the extreme, violently expressionist"

'..Add to this an altogether exceptional sense of creative dialogue between soloist and orchestra and you have a performance that richly repays repeated hearings - a good bet for anyone who already has a tip-top account of the First Concerto (such as Rostropovich's) and is looking for a complementary version of the Second...'

Pieter's next CD release will be the Walton cello Concerto with The Sydney Symphony Orchestra to include the 1st Bloch cello suite a re-recorded version of the Ligetti solo sonata (the latter 2 on the stradivarius). This will be followed by the Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante with The Rotterdam Philharmonic.

Pieter has just been named Festival director of the Beauvais Cello Festival in France and will be overseeing his 1st festival in May 2009. He is taking over from Jacques Bernaert who founded the festival in 1993.

Also..in December Pieter performs Schnittke's 2nd cello concerto (for the first time in his life) with the Liege Philharmonic.

Pieter is still playing on the beautiful Magg Stradivarius from 1698 but as yet has been unable to find a willing investor to buy the instrument.

Pieter receives rave reviews for his concert with The Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer in the Festival Hall in London. Tim Ashley for The Guardian wrote:

'...Fischer and his soloist, Pieter Wispelwey, brought out the grandeur in this music, without losing sight of its poetry. The great melody that forms the second subject of the first movement was noble and nostalgic, while the finale blended arrogance with excitement. Wispelwey thinks in terms of span as well as detail, and the dividends were enormous. With Fischer at his most incisive, the orchestral sound was turbulent and beguiling - in short, a terrific interpretation that changed the way we think about the piece itself.'

The Dvorak CD with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra continues to receive good reviews. Here are a few so far :

THIS IS CONCERT RECORDING AT ITS FINEST – WISPELWEY’S DVORAK IS ELECTRIFYING

Dutch firm Channel Classics has been stepping in where major internationals are being cautious - recording the central repertoire. Here we have an outstanding version of Dvorák's Cello Concerto, one to rival any version in the catalogue and imaginatively coupled with the much earlier Symphonic Variations. Pieter Wispeiwey crowns his previous releases in this electrifying live recording, brilliantly accompanied by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer.
It includes applause at the end of each performance, suggesting there is far less editing here than in many other "live" recordings. That ties in with the high-voltage performances, well recorded in atmospheric and finely detailed sound, with the soloist well balanced in the concerto. Wispelwey's playing is marked by crisp attack and exceptionally clean articulation, and though he allows an easing for the transition into the great second-subject melody, as well as in the mysterious G sharp minor reference to it in the central development section (tr 1, 9'34"), he keeps romantic freedom well in check. The Wispelwey first movement climax is triumphant with the orchestra weighty in tuttis,while the slow movement finds the soloist flexible, with magical shading of pianissimi leading to the hushed close. The finale is crisp and clean, with some wonderfully ripe-sounding horns suggesting Viennese influence. The hushed epilogue is refined, leading to a powerful final cadence....An outstanding disc.
Edward Greenfield (Gramophone October 2007)

It was also CD of the week in The Sunday Times Magazine. '..Pieter Wispelwey, renowned for his work on baroque cello, plays a beautiful 'modern' Guadagnini of 1760 on this live recording from Budapest, and banishes Dvorak's doubts about the 'nasal sound of the high notes' and 'the droning..of the bass'. Just listen to his exquisitely shaped reprise of the great horn melody from the orchestral introduction to the opening movement - cello playing of incomparable technical and musical accomplishment...'

Have you read the review from the New York Times of Pieter and Dejan Lazic's Beethoven marathon in the Lincoln Center New York? (Click here to read review)

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