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Weilerstein Aces Shostakovich Cello Concertos

David Hurwitz

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Well now, this is more like it! Alisa Weilerstein is a remarkable artist, but her previous concerto recordings have been crippled either by unappealing couplings (Elgar/Carter–brave but not necessarily smart), uninteresting accompaniments (Dvorák), and/or bad sound (Dvorák again). Here everything goes right. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra also appears on one of the reference recordings of these pieces–with Heinrich Schiff and the composer’s son, Maxim, as conductor. Here 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. In so many performances it sounds like a sequence of disconnected fragments.

Weilerstein is just as persuasive in the less popular Second Concerto, a bigger, darker and spookier work. 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. The First Concerto is a studio recording, the Second a live performance before a deathly silent audience (and thank God there is no applause captured at the end). There are now many excellent versions of these concertos, both individually and together, but this release more than justifies the duplication.

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Recording Details:

Reference Recording: Schiff/Shostakovich (Philips/Decca)

  • Record Label: Decca - 483 0835
  • Medium: CD

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