She’s playing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the husband of the woman who made the greatest-ever recording of it; she’s already won a “Genius” award from the MacArthur Foundation, and she’s got Decca hailing her as its first solo cellist signing in more than three decades. Lots of hype to live up to there, and Alisa Weilerstein seems on a hiding-to-nothing when the inevitable comparisons are made with Jacqueline duPré. What the conspicuously intelligent American has going for her is a prodigious talent that’s been recognised ever since she made her concert debut with Cleveland Orchestra nearly two decades ago. That, and a commercial point-of-difference in programming, with the immortal Elgar coupled implausibly with Elliott Carter’s Cello Concerto, and then the bitter pill’s sugar- coating of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei.
But Weilerstein is known for her interest in contemporary music, and Carter’s Cello Concerto, filled with slap-pizzicato and spiky orchestral explosions, is one of the few works by the American composer’s-composer that has crossed over successfully into the popular concert hall.
And strange as it may sound given the beloved warhorse company that it keeps, this boots-and-all recording of it is the highlight of an impressive CD which leaves the brain stimulated but the emotions strangely unengaged. In interviews,...
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