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January 2012 sees Pieter sharing the podium several times with the fantastic fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout. They are appearing in Bruges, Imola in Italy and have 2 consecutive nights in London's Wigmore Hall where they will perform all of Beethoven's works for piano and cello duo. Later in the season they can also be heard in the Hague in the Netherlands and in the Muzikverein in Vienna.

Kristian is not the only pianist that Pieter is working with in this 2nd half of the season. As well as a recital with his regular duo partner Paolo Giacometti in The Celebrity Series in Boston's Jordan Hall in february, he is also performing in the same month with the awesome young french pianist Cedric Tiberghien in Madrid and with the brilliant Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland in Beijing in May.

The 6 Bach Suites are very much back on the menu for Pieter with 2 major concerts in Athens and Paris at the end of last year and this year in Dortmund and Seoul. This is all leading to a big project in May involving the filming and recording of a concert and open debate on the Suites (lead by Bach experts John Butt and Larry Dreyfus). The footage will be used for a CD/DVD release in September to coincide with Pieter's 50th birthday celebrations.

On the recording front, his new disc of Mendelssohn and Chopin with Paolo Giacometti is now out and reviews have been good. Here is one from the Guardian:

'....it's the two sonatas that show them both at their best – the Mendelssohn is dashingly well played, set out off like a rocket in the opening movement and only pausing for breath in the third-movement Adagio, while in the Chopin it's Giacometti who frequently takes the lead, though the interweaving of cello and piano is beautifully engineered by both players.'

The next recording in the pipeline is Lalo concerto with Flanders Symphony Orchestra and Seikyo Kim which was recorded as part of a tour of the piece in December

Great review in 'The Scotsman' from Glasgow where Pieter played Dvorak with The Royal Scottish National Orchestra:

"It was in cellist Pieter Wispelwey that the music at last found a refreshing energy, fixed between snarling ferocity and cavalier ease. Wispelwey's sound could never be described as rich or silken; instead he plays with the kind of precision and gutsy candour that betrays his early music pedigree. The effect he wrought on Dvorak's Cello Concerto was extraordinary; all the well-known melodies were present but in Wispelwey's hands they became stories recounted through the eyes of an older, worldlier raconteur."

Pieter's CD Britten 'Cello Symphony and Cello Suite No 1' has 5 stars in BBC Music Magazine. '...The Dutch cellist has long been a fine interpreter of the Britten Suites, and he here brings an innate understanding of Britten's voice, libertating both its power to shock and to sing with virile energy, finesse and a seemingly elastic bow...Wispelwey creates a truly mystical hiatus in the cadenza and positively glows with radiance in the noble finale....Wispelwey once again plays with great naturalness, ease and spontaneity.'

For more reviews of this and to buy or download this CD go to www.onyxclassics.com

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The disc with Paolo Giacometti - Schubert Fantasy (arranged by Pieter for cello), Arpeggione, Duo in A (arr Pieter) - is released. Gramophone '..I found the Fantasy, especially, remarkably convincing in its new guise. The transposition to cello increases the difficulties of what is already a demanding work, and enhances the sense of virtuosity as Wispelwey triumphantly surmounts each hurdle...'

Gramophone editors choice :'The inspired dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey here couples the Walton Cello concerto with a sequence of works for unaccompanied cello. As one would expect, his playing is flawless...'

BBC music magazine (5 stars):'...Wispelwey's cello playing, too, has a kind of seasoned timber sound, at once mellow and concentrated, that suits the music to near-perfection...'

Audiophile Audition: Maybe the finest sound ever given to the Prokofiev. Pieter is one of the greatest cellists currently sawing away, and his command of this music is evident. If you want a particularly virtuosic performance in fantastic sound, this Channel Classics release won't let you down.

BBC Music Magazine:'.. very impressive achievement..…Wispelwey is particularly good at creating a sense of coherence in the cadenza passages....The two unaccompanied cello pieces provide an extremely enterprising coupling. Wispelwey draws wonderfully haunting melodic line through the Oriental inflections of the Tcherepnin, while the Crumb is no less compelling.'

Translation Opus HD: ' The cellist Pieter Wispelwey is, once again, in total harmony with these three composers, and his playing offers the perfect mix of inspiration that is both profound and spontaneous, as is Prokofiev’s score, which he describes as such: “Prokofiev was a musical polyglot. His Concerto Symphony is a continent without borders, a trip through style, language, time and tradition, like post-modernism before post-modernism, savage, classic, exotic, frenzied, surprising, and of course Russian.” Here then is an impressive SACD, with a delightful combination of works, that cannot be ignored.'

Pieter's Shostakovich concerto no 2 disc with Sinfonia Cracovia continues to receive good reviews. Here are some of the best:

Patrick Szersnovicz 'La Monde de la Musique' wrote:
"Pieter Wispelwey, even measured against the dedicatee of the work, Mstislav Rostropovich, delivers the greatest interpretation ever recorded of Britten's Suite No.3...

"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 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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