Weinberg Pieter Wispelwey, Jean-Michel Charlier, Les Métamorphoses & Raphaël Feye

• Mieczysław Weinberg (1919 - 1996): Cello Concertino, Op. 43bis:
• 1 Weinberg: Cello Concertino, Op. 43bis: I. Adagio 04:21
• 2 Weinberg: Cello Concertino, Op. 43bis: II. Moderato espressivo 03:03
• 3 Weinberg: Cello Concertino, Op. 43bis: III. Allegro vivace 03:16
• 4 Weinberg: Cello Concertino, Op. 43bis: IV. Adagio 05:54
• Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52:
• 5 Weinberg: Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52: Adagio - Andantino leggiero - Allegro con fuoco - Andantino leggiero - Adagio 17:40
• Chamber Symphony No. 4 Op. 153:
• 6 Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 4 Op. 153: I. Lento 08:18
• 7 Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 4 Op. 153: II. Allegro molto-Moderato 07:06
• 8 Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 4 Op. 153: III. Adagio 10:02
• 9 Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 4 Op. 153: IV. Andantino 08:41
• Total Runtime 01:08:21

Info for Weinberg

Few composers can be said to be ‘citizens of nowhere’ and yet, exactly this moniker is appropriate for Mieczysław Weinberg. He was born and raised in Poland to a Jewish family, but for complex reasons spent the majority of his life in Soviet Russia. He had a prolific output(over 150 opus-numbered works, and more besides), but never reached international fame during his lifetime. Since his death in 1996, that has all changed. His powerful music speaks to generations, made all the more powerful by his emotive biography. Weinberg was born in December 1919; his father was a violinist and conductor for several Jewish theatres in Warsaw, and his mother was an actor and singer. After beginning piano, Weinberg showed great talent and began joining his father in the orchestra pit from the age of 11. He studied at the Warsaw conservatoire, and was even offered a scholarship to study in America.

Fate intervened, in the form of the Second World War. Weinberg fled Warsaw and headed east, leaving his parents and sister behind (he would never see them again; they were murdered in the Holocaust). He was granted entry to the Soviet Union, and briefly studied in Minsk, before fleeing the Nazi advance again in 1941. At this point, he fled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from where he eventually settled in Moscow, at Shostakovich’s personal invitation. The two composers quickly became firm colleagues and friends, and they regularly began to show each other their works in progress. He had still not escaped the spectre of anti-Semitism, however, and he was imprisoned for several months in 1953 on trumped-up charges. During the 1960s, Weinberg reached the height of his fame, as his music was performed by the likes of David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Kirill Kondrashin. Despite such success, his music was always marked by the trauma of the loss and tragedy that he had endured. Since his death in obscurity, a generation of performers has brought Weinberg’s music to contemporary audiences: his blend of tuneful modernism speaks to millions around the world.

Pieter Wispelwey, cello
Jean-Michel Charlier, clarinet
Les Métamporphoses Orchestra
Raphaël Feye, direction

Pieter Wispelwey
is equally at ease on the modern or period cello. His acute stylistic awareness, combined with a truly original interpretation and a phenomenal technical mastery, has won the hearts of critics and public alike in repertoire ranging from JS Bach to Schnittke, Elliott Carter and works composed for him.

Highlights of the 16-17 season include a play-direct project with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a performance of the complete Bach suites at Auditorium de Lyon and the City Recital Hall in Sydney, performances of Tavener’s Svyati with the Flanders Radio Choir and two recitals at King’s Place in London as part of their ‘Cello Unwrapped’ season. Pieter will also give series of extraordinary recitals at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part their Great Performer Series, where he will perform the complete Bach Suites, Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano, and the two cello sonatas by Brahms over the course of three consecutive evenings.

Pieter Wispelwey enjoys chamber music collaborations and regular duo partners include pianists Cédric Tiberghien and Alasdair Beatson and he appears as a guest artist with a number of string quartets including the Australian String Quartet.

Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and he has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, Tokyo Philharmonic, Sapporo Symphony, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg. Conductor collaborations include Ivan Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jeffrey Tate, Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Vassily Sinaisky, Vladimir Jurowski, Louis Langrée, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman and Sir Roger Norrington.

With regular recital appearances in London (Wigmore Hall), Paris (Châtelet, Louvre), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw), Brussels (Bozar), Berlin (Konzerthaus), Milan (Societta del Quartetto), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Sydney (The Utzon Room), Los Angeles (Walt Disney Hall) and New York (Lincoln Center), Wispelwey has established a reputation as one of the most charismatic recitalists on the circuit

In 2012 Wispelwey celebrated his 50th birthday by embarking on a project showcasing the Bach Cello Suites. He recorded the complete Suites for the third time, released on the label ‘Evil Penguin Classics’. The box set also includes a DVD featuring illustrated debates on the interpretation of the Bach Suites with eminent Bach scholars Laurence Dreyfus and John Butt. A major strand of his recital performances is his performances of the complete suites during the course of one evening, an accomplishment that has attracted major critical acclaim throughout Europe and the US. “On paper it is a feat requiring brilliance, stamina and perhaps a bit of hubris. In practice Mr. Wispelwey proved himself impressively up to the challenge, offering performances as eloquent as they were provocative” ( New York Times).

Pieter Wispelwey’s impressive discography of over 20 albums, available on Channel Classic, Onyx and Evil Penguin Classics, has attracted major international awards. His most recent concerto release features the C.P.E. Bach’s Cello Concerto in A major with the Musikkollegium Winterthur, whilst he is also midway through an imaginative project to record the complete duo repertoire of Schubert and Brahms. Other recent releases include Lalo’s Cello Concerto, Saint-Saen’s Concerto no.2 and the Britten Cello Symphony with Seikyo Kim and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Walton’s Cello Concerto (Sydney Symphony/Jeffrey Tate), Prokofiev’s Symphonie Concertante (Rotterdam Philharmonic/Vassily Sinaisky.

Born in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Wispelwey’ studied with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam and later with Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in the UK.

Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Rombouts baroque cello.

Jean-Michel Charlier
Born in Belgium in 1959, Jean-Michel Charlier graduated with high honors in clarinet and chamber music from the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music. He then perfected with Guy Deplus (Paris), and Walter Boeykens (Antwerp).

Member of the Orchestre Symphonique de la Monnaie during 5 years, he has been solo clarinet of the Belgium National Orchestra since 1985.

He gives concerts and recitals both in Belgium and abroad (France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, …) some of them have been the subject of television and radio broadcasts (RTBF, VRT, BRF, France Music …). He regularly collaborates with various well-known chamber ensembles such as the Danel Quartet, the Zemlinsky Quartet, the Ysaÿe Ensemble, Piacevole, Oxalys, Musiques Nouvelles ensemble as well as various formations within the Belgium National Orchestra.

Several composers have entrusted him with the creation of their works, including Benoît Mernier, Hao-Fu Zhang, Dirk d’Haese, Daniel Capelletti, Jean-Marie Bardèche, Sergio Montori, Emmar Lampson, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Pierre Bartholomée, Andreas Scartazzini … without forgetting his constant desire to revive many masterpieces from the Belgian repertoire. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has recorded up to now 9 CDs (Cypres, Calliope, Fuga Libera, Kalidisk, Naxos), one of which won the Charles Cros Record Academy Grand Prix. Professor of clarinet at the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music until 2003, Jean-Michel Charlier regularly gives internships and master classes in Belgium, France and Spain. In 2002, he won the Fuga prize for the promotion and diffusion of Belgian music with Philippe Terseleer, pianist.

Booklet for Weinberg