In his first visit to Colorado, Pieter Wispelwey promises to dish up Slavic-themed music by modernists Bohuslav Martinu and Samuel Barber, and romantics Frederic Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
“It’s quite a full program of sonatas,” said the Dutch cellist, who will be accompanied by Alexander Melnikov on piano.
“I perform all kinds of programs and genres, but compared to sonatas like these, playing concertos with orchestras is peanuts.
“This particular program shows the link between Samuel Barber, and Europeans Martinu and Rachmaninoff who were strongly influenced by their experiences in the United States.”
With some 30 recordings to his name — the latest being his version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Polish orchestra Sinfonietta Cracovia — Wispelwey is well-known in Europe, Asia and Australia, as well as New York, Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles.
But it’s thanks to the Friends of Chamber Music that the charismatic artist will perform at the University of Denver’s Newman Center on Wednesday.
“I love being on stage, I revel in it,” said Wispelwey. “But I also love to teach. I make a point of giving master classes wherever I go, including Denver. Students — like anyone — are more likely to attend and understand a concert if I’ve made the effort to share the magic. Not retreat into my own little world.”
Born in the Netherlands in 1962, Wispelwey has lived since age 19 in the same 17th century house on the Noordermarkt in Amsterdam.
“I fell in love with the cello at age 2,” he said, referring to his early exposure to music, listening to his father’s amateur string quartet rehearse at the Wispelwey home.
“It was always the cello for me. I love its sounds and what it takes to produce those sounds — I love the sensuality of the cello and my intuitive, almost animalistic response to it.”
In Denver, Wispelwey, who is equally at home on the modern cello and Baroque-era four- or five-string cello, will play on a 1698 Stradivarius. “I’m quite proud of the cello I own, but a Strad is always in a category of its own. It has it all — the richness and the colors, and a certain mellowness, power and clarity.”
Besides his performing and teaching pursuits, Wispelwey was just named director of the Beauvais Cello Festival in France.
“It’s an extremely recent development, I’m very excited about it,” he said. “Now I can phone my colleagues to come and play in my festival, and invite cellists that I find particularly inspiring.
“The festival includes a series for improvising cellists, and cellists who compose their own music. We inspire each other, and thereby inspire ourselves.”
Friends of Chamber Music
Classical music. Cellist Pieter Wispelwey plays sonatas by Martinu, Barber, Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave., Denver 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Sold out. 303-388-9839 or .
