Album: Walton, Cello Concerto – Wispelway / Tate, (Onyx)

Reviewed by Anna Picard

Sunday 22 March 2009

Pieter Wispelway's recital is a thing of wild beauty. Here is William Walton at his least superficial, in the bold planes of his 1956 Cello Concerto and the bitter "Passacaglia".

The shadow of Bach inevitably hangs over this, the great "Ciaccona" from Britten's Second Cello Suite, and Ernest Bloch's "Suite no 1 for solo cello". Wispelway's sound is thrilling, his articulation of Ligeti's "Sonata for solo cello" fierce and intelligent. Under Jeffrey Tate's direction in the Concerto, the Sydney Symphony matches him gleam for gleam.

Pick of the album: The dark 'Allegro appassionato' of Walton's Cello Concerto

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