★★★★½ Weilerstein’s Dvořák demands to be seen as well as heard.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
November 16, 2016

Having missed her Australian appearances a couple of years ago I was keen to hear Alisa Weilerstein live, having been increasingly impressed by the American cellist’s growing Decca discography, and especially by a fine 2015 recording of the Dvořák concerto. The Czech composer’s masterpiece was placed second in this programme, but it was well worth the waiting for in the hands of this extraordinarily communicative artist.

Brett Dean’s eclectic programme threw the spotlight initially onto the orchestra with a blockbuster reading of Witold Lutosławski’s gritty Third Symphony. Weilerstein led us into the work, perched high up at the back of the stage, playing the Polish composer’s taxing Sacher Variation – a solo investigation of a theme by Benjamin Britten written to celebrate the Swiss entrepreneur’s 70th birthday in 1976. Ranging from impassioned anger to melancholy, Weilerstein ran a whole gamut of emotions in four minutes, before Dean neatly segued into the symphony proper and the soloist slipped discreetly offstage.

^{Brett Dean}

Lutosławski was one of those composers whose style changed enormously from the...