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Who or what inspired you to take up the ‘cello and pursue a career in music?

My father is an amateur violinist and has been playing in string quartets with friends all his life. At the age of two I was allowed to sit in the room when they were rehearsing and I was obsessed with the cello and have been ever since.

Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?

I was extraordinarily lucky with my first cello teacher. I started the piano with my mum, who taught me to read music and was then introduced to my teacher, Dicky Boeke, at the age of six, but didn’t start with her until I was eight as she was so busy. She taught me for 10 years, and not just about cello; it was about art, literature, opera. She helped me audition for the great Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma and I studied with him for two years from the age of 17-19. I have been on my own since then, apart from a year of studies in the US and an unforgettable summer course with William Pleeth in Aldeburgh.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

I consider my career to have reached its middle length so far, and I still have two decades to go. So of course there are ups and downs and disappointments – everybody has these. One challenge could be physical in terms of injury; however I have been very lucky in that sense. Practising and the relationship with your instrument keeps you inspired.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

My last recordings, although I still hope to keep improving and being more expressive. I’m now at two-thirds of my recording project doing all the sonatas by Schubert and Brahms which include many violin pieces and on the last release is the 2nd Brahms violin sonata, which I believe is a world premiere recording. I also recorded Schubert’s Fantasy for violin and piano, which is technically a very intimidating piece, so getting my teeth into that was great, very stimulating and I am very happy with it. Some recordings just have very happy memories, for instance doing The Walton Concerto with Sydney Symphony Orchestra 7 or 8 years ago in Sydney Opera House, that most glamorous and gorgeous place.

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

I am always happy performing concertos with orchestras, however the Beethoven Cello Sonatas are particularly rewarding to perform, brimming with energy and lyricism, as they are.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

As I said, I have embarked on this enormous recording project with the Schubert and Brahms pieces so they will appear on my recital program, concertos are up to orchestras that invite me to play and then there are occasional collaborations in chamber music programs, in trio, quartet, quintet or sextet repertoire, but also projects like the one I’m doing next month with a singer and a pianist.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

I mentioned Sydney Opera House; however another example is the new Melbourne Recital Centre, a stunningly beautiful place in which to perform and listen to music. I will be doing three recitals on three consecutive days in August: Beethoven, Brahms and Bach marathons, a bit of a milestone week for me.

Who are your favourite musicians?

My all-time favourite musician is a singer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the German baritone. As a teenager I started collecting his albums and still collect today. He is a supreme musician and a fantastically inspiring singer to listen to. I also really respect and enjoy listening to the American cellist YoYo Ma.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

The Walton Concerto with Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Sydney Opera House, but it could also be Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. In fact it’s hard to say. I enjoyed Paxton last year for example.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

I am a professor in a German Musikhochschule and I try to inspire and discipline the students; however what musicians might not realise is that they must work as creative artists. They are of course recreating scores that composers delivered, but it is very important for them to do that with creativity. They must consider traditions, what they mean, and how important and unimportant they are. Also creativity in how you practise and make things better. It is important to keep muscles supple and continue to practise in that way. Also to simply enjoy alternative approaches to keeping your mind fresh.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?

My wife is English so maybe living in the UK once we have raised our kids in Holland.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

That includes other people around you, conversation and good food.

What is your most treasured possession?

Other than my cello, nothing in the material sense.

What is your present state of mind?

I have just been working as a jury member in Brussels which was an intense period, so I am recovering from that. I am looking forward to the summer festivals, which include Music at Paxton, and also to catching up with my colleagues and working with them. I am also looking forward to going to my little basement cellar to practise!

Pieter Wispelwey performs at Music at Paxton this summer and will also be giving a masterclass:

Sunday 23 July 1.30pm, cello masterclass

An opportunity for advanced students of all ages to learn and gain insight into Bach’s Cello Suites from an acknowledged master. 

Please note places are strictly limited. For further information and application details, please contact info@musicatpaxton.co.uk by 01 June 2017.

Tickets £10.00 (concessions free entry) – unreserved.

NB: free to ticket holders for the evening concert.

Sunday 23 July 7.30pm Pieter Wispelwey in concert

J S Bach Three Suites for solo cello – No 3 in C, No 4 in E flat & No 5 in C minor

Full details and tickets

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.

www.pieterwispelwey.com

(photo credit: Carolien Sikkenk)

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The life of the pianist is, by necessity, solitary (and I have written before about The Pianist’s Loneliness). For many of us, the solitude is not an issue: we crave a sense of apartness to enable us to do our work and to create special connections with audiences when we perform, and we need quietude to allow time for self-reflection and evaluation.

The sequestered nature of the pianist’s life also calls for great self-reliance: we must  be self-starting, motivated, driven and focused to ensure our work (practising and preparation) is done each day. Most of us draw pleasure and satisfaction from knowing our work is done and done well, but without other colleagues and musical companions to interact with, it is easy for self-doubt to creep in, for us to question our role or our value, to ask “am I good enough?”.

Such negativism can stem from a performance which didn’t go to plan, the disappointment (and anger) from failing an exam or audition, a less-than-favourable review or some ill-advised comments from a teacher or mentor. Alone with our thoughts, such things can fester and grow into bigger problems than they need to be, and while most of us know that these things should simply be put down to “experience”, reflected upon and then put to one side, it can sometimes be difficult to shrug off feelings of inadequacy.

In his book ‘The Mindful Pianist’, teacher and pianist Mark Tanner notes the importance for the pianist of exercising “self-compassion” as a protection from the feelings of failure that can develop from setbacks, in addition to negative self-talk, lack of self-esteem, or dismotivation which can plague us when we spend so much time alone.

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Self-compassion is really no different from having compassion for others: the ability to recognise or understand difficulties, pain or suffering, and to respond in a kind, humane and sympathetic way. Having compassion enables us to offer understanding and support when someone makes a mistake, and demonstrates that we appreciate that we are all human and that suffering, failure, and imperfection are all part of the shared human experience.

By exercising self-compassion, we simply turn these kind and sympathetic responses back on ourselves. It involves acting in the same way as we would towards others when we are having a difficult time, fail or notice something in ourselves which we don’t like.

Self-compassion can be defined in three elements – self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity – and can be applied to the pianist’s life and work as follows:

Self-kindness helps us cease the self-evaluation and critical assessment, the negative self-talk, asking “am I good enough”, comparing ourselves to others and the subsequent feelings inadequacy.

By exercising self-kindness we can recognize that perfection is an unattainable artificial construct, that when we fail, we need not beat ourselves up nor judge ourselves too harshly, but instead accept that we are human, that we “had a bad day at the office”, Self-kindness allows us be curious, open, and loving when it comes to how we regard ourselves.

Self-compassionate people appreciate that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life’s difficulties are inevitable. By being self-compassionate we can be more gentle with ourselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of our expectations or set ideals. This can lead us to greater emotional equanimity.

From the musician’s point of view, such an attitude enables us to work with curiosity and open-mindedness, to be more self-inquiring, to regard mistakes as tools for learning and self-improvement, and to be kind to ourselves when lack of time or motivation means we may not get as much practising in on a given day as we’d hoped.

Mindfulness helps us to be non-judgmental and to take a balanced approach to our emotions. Being mindful allows us to observe our thoughts and feelings from a distance, and for the musician it encourages a positive attitude towards mistakes (learning tools) and setbacks.

Mindfulness also means “living in the moment” and being awake to experience: for the musician mindfulness encourages us to practise thoughtfully, with concentration, commitment, improved focus and care.

In a performance situation, it encourages us to focus on creating the sound we hear on the spot, and to immerse ourselves in the vibrancy and “now-ness” of the music, rather than over-thinking what we are doing or getting caught up in comparing the performance to the ideal one we have in our head. It also enables us to banish the destructive “inner critic”, to be less “over-identified” with our thoughts and feelings, and to be accepting of our own strengths and weaknesses.

Common humanity is about recognising that personal inadequacy, vulnerability and failure are part of the shared human experience – something we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone. By recognising this, we accept that we don’t need to be singled out as the “most” or “least”, “best” or “worst” of anything, and we can become more objective about who we are in the world and how we choose to be. For the musician specifically, this includes not constantly comparing oneself to others but rather being accepting of who we are, and freeing oneself from the tyranny of perfectionism.

Self-compassion can protect us from the negative thoughts, self-doubt or feelings of inadequacy that the life of the musician may provoke, but it can also encourage us to open ourselves up to the full spectrum of our experience which is the starting point for truly compelling and mature musicianship.

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[Opera is] more than entertainment. Opera offers an insight into the complexities of the human psyche – it is a metaphor for, or an exposition, even, of our own personal dreams and nightmares…

– Kevin Volans, composer

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Lise Lindstrom as Turandot at the Royal Opera House

Last week my best friend went to the opera for the very first time. And not just any old opera, she went to see the final dress rehearsal of Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ at the Royal Opera House (“the one with that aria they sing at the World Cup” as she put it). She texted during the interval to tell me about it – “It’s so beautiful!” and “OMG it’s incredible!“, and the next day, over lunch, she described the experience in detail to me – the venue, the music, the narrative. For someone who claims to “know nothing about classical music“, her descriptions of the music and the story-line were articulate, intelligent and heartfelt. She spoke of how the music swelled in passion, only to pull back from the brink, holding her in suspense; how the singers interacted on stage, the impressive tone of their voices, the incredible sound of the chorus; the magnificent setting, and many other details large and small which, for her (and many like her, myself included) make opera one of the most exciting and engaging art forms. She even expressed frustration at the intervals, which, for her, disrupted the flow of the performance. She admitted she had gone to the ROH with many preconceptions – that she would feel out of place in the audience (she didn’t), that the audience would be very highbrow (they weren’t), that she wouldn’t be able to understand the narrative (she did) and that she might find the experience boring (she didn’t). Instead, she found the experience immersive, emotional and exciting, echoing the quote at the beginning of this article, that “all human life is right there, in the opera!“.

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It is that magical combination of music, words, song, acting, setting, emotions that make opera so absorbing and exciting. Having returned to opera fairly recently myself, I fully identify with my friend’s comments: even the most far-fetched story-lines take on a sense of heightened realism and credibility in the special atmosphere of the opera house. In fact, far from being inaccessible, opera is full of memorable, hummable tunes. I bet most people could hum Bizet’s Toreador’s Song (from Carmen), or the magical duet from The Pearl Fishers, and of course my friend recognised ‘Nessun Dorma’ (from Turandot), because it has been elevated to the rank of a sporting anthem. We hear excerpts from opera in film and tv soundtracks, and in adverts, so embedded is this art form in our Western cultural landscape. And as my friend discovered, to her surprise, opera is rather more relaxed than the “sitting in the dark in hushed reverence” atmosphere of, say, the Wigmore Hall, and  the etiquette of opera-going is looser. For example, you can applaud after a particularly fine aria or chorus set-piece and no one glares at you as if you have committed some major musical faux pas, and there is a very tangible sense of shared experience.

“Please can we go to an opera together?” my friend asked and I assured her that as soon as the ENO new season opens, we will go. It will be fun to go with opera’s newest fan!

English National Opera

Royal Opera House

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First published in 2007 ‘The Rest Is Noise’ by Alex Ross, music critic of the ‘New Yorker’, charts twentieth century Western classical music from the dying embers of “fin de siecle” Europe and the years prior to the devastation of the First World War to the present day. In many ways, the book is less a history of classical music than a history of the twentieth century as told through its remarkable, often shocking and epoch-making music.

Playlist curated by Frances Wilson.

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