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Pieter Wispelwey (born 25 September 1962) is a Dutch cellist. [1] [2] In 1992, he was the first cellist to receive the Netherlands Music Prize, a government-awarded prize given to the most promising young musician in the Netherlands. He has come to be regarded as one of the world's leading performers and interpreters of both baroque and modern cello works. [3]
He plays a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Rombouts baroque cello. [4]
Pieter Wispelwey was born in Haarlem and grew up in Santpoort. From a very early age he was exposed to the sounds of his father's amateur string quartet when they rehearsed at the Wispelwey home. He began on the piano, but later took up the cello at age eight. [5] Later on he took lessons from Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam, followed by studies with Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in the UK.
His first recording with Channel Classics Records, the Bach Cello Suites, received considerable acclaim upon its release in 1990. He released two further recordings of the suites in 1998 (Channel Classics) and 2012 (Evil Penguin Records). The support of Channel Classics in the 1990s and 2000s enabled him to record his own choice of repertoire, with his own choice of artists and orchestras. This resulted in recordings of unusual repertoire, such as Franz Schubert violin sonatinas, Frédéric Chopin waltzes, mazurkas and preludes and the Bach Gamba sonatas played with his own personal instrumentations.
Wispelwey has appeared as a recitalist all over the world, including at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall (London), Châtelet (Paris), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires) and Sydney Opera House. He has performed with many orchestras and ensembles, both with and without a conductor. Notable projects without conductor have been the touring and recording of the Schumann and Shostakovich cello concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti. He has also appeared with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Symphony, Camerata Academica Salzburg, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and others and has recorded with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.
Wispelwey is comfortable playing the modern cello with either metal or gut strings as well as the baroque four- and five-string cello, which allows him a repertoire ranging from Bach to Elliott Carter. Growing up exposed to gut strings as the norm like many others of his generation, Wispelwey developed a conviction that, under the right conditions, much of the 18th- and 19th-century string repertoire sounds superior when played on gut strings instead of metal. However, he is not a purist, and he plays on steel strings if conditions make it sound better than gut strings.
He has been praised for his "intelligent, penetrating musicianship and lyrical commitment," and Ivan Hewett, writer for the Telegraph and teacher at the Royal College of Music, likened him to a "master rhetorician." [6] [7]
Since the age of 19 he has resided in Amsterdam.
The cello ( CHEL-oh; plural celli or cellos) or violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh; Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
Johann Nikolaus Harnoncourt or historically Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt; was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble, Concentus Musicus Wien, in 1953, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement. Around 1970, Harnoncourt began conducting opera and concert performances, soon leading international symphony orchestras, and appearing at leading concert halls, operatic venues and festivals. His repertoire then widened to include composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2001 and 2003, he conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert. Harnoncourt was also the author of several books, mostly on subjects of performance history and musical aesthetics.
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–1723, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso.
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Steven Isserlis is a British cellist. He has led a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and broadcaster. Acclaimed for his profound musicianship, he is also noted for his diverse repertoire, command of phrasing, and distinctive sound which is deployed with his use of gut strings.
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