Pieter Wispelwey, cello
Pei-Shan Lee, piano
A rare opportunity to experience all five of Beethoven’s cello sonatas in a single evening, this extraordinary recital traces the composer’s evolution from youthful fire to transcendent late style. Legendary Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey, praised by The New York Times for his “unusually complete grasp of the music,” joins acclaimed pianist Pei-Shan Lee, whose playing has been called “ravishing and insightful” by The Boston Globe, for a powerful exploration of one of chamber music’s greatest collection of masterpieces.
Join us for a pre-concert stage talk at 2:15pm with Professor Anne Schreffler.
Please note that the duration of this performance will be 2.5 hrs with two brief intermissions.
Program:
BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata No. 1 in F major, Op. 5, No. 1
BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 5 No. 2
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BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1
BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata No. 5 in D major, Op. 102, No. 2
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BEETHOVEN: Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69
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 Gubaidulina, Dutilleux and works composed for him. 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 Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon, Tokyo Philharmonic, Sapporo Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, 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, JeffreyTate, Kent Nagano, Otto Tausk, 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, Kings Place), Paris (Châtelet, Louvre), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw, Muziekgebouw), Brussels (Bozar), Berlin (Konzerthaus), Vienna (Konzerthaus, Musikverein), Milan (Società del Quartetto), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Sydney (The Utzon Room), Seoul (Arts Center), Tokyo (Toppan Hall), 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 the 2025/2026 season, Wispelwey appeared in recital at the Laidlaw Centre in St Andrews with pianist Alasdair Beatson, and reunited with the Dudok Quartet for performances in Nottingham, Leamington, Norwich and Rotterdam.
He returned to New York’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s and gave a complete Bach Suites recital at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, as well as a further recital appearance at Wigmore Hall. Wispelwey’s performances of the complete Bach Suites in a single evening form a major strand of his recital appearances, 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 himsel fimpressively up to the challenge, offering performances as eloquent as they were provocative” (New YorkTimes). With a number of “complete” sets by other composers in his repertoire, he has also followed the complete Bach Suites with a recital of those by Britten, and extended the venture to its greatest proportion yet when he played 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 at Melbourne Recital Centre as part of their Great Performers Series.
Together with Paolo Giacometti, Wispelwey is the recipient of the 2019 Brahmspreis in recognition of the duo’s groundbreaking interpretations of the composer’s music, which culminated in an exciting recording venture committing the complete duo works by Schubert and Brahms to disc. The final instalment of the 6 CDs was released in May 2019 by Evil Penguin Records Classic. Pieter Wispelwey’s impressive discography of about 50 albums, available on Channel Classic, Onyx and EPR, has attracted major international awards. As well as the complete Schubert and Brahms, he has released three recordings of the complete Bach Suites, and his recent recording of Weinberg’s Concertino received the German Record Critics Award. In 2023, he released two albums In Memoriam, dedicated to his son Dorian, who tragically died in 2022. The first of these is a rerelease of the three greatest Schubert Violin-Piano pieces and the Trockne Blumen Variations, Schubert having played a great role in Dorian’s life. The second, the Scordatura album, features two works in darker, alternative tunings: Bach’s Fifth Suite and Kodaly’s Sonata.
A 35-disc retrospective box set was released in November 2024, compiling all of Wispelwey’s recordings for Channel Classics between 1990 and 2009, an extraordinary body of work spanning solo repertoire, major concertos, chamber music, and contemporary works, and showcasing long-standing collaborations with artists such as Paul Komen, Paolo Giacometti, Dejan Lazić, and conductor Iván Fischer.
Recent highlights include duo recitals with Paolo Giacometti at Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires) and Villa Papendorf, appearances at the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam, the International M. K. Čiurlionis Music Festival and Toppan Hall (Tokyo), performances with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa as part of Festival Paulo Gaio Lima, and with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. 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 is Professor of Cello at Robert Schumann Musikhochschule Düsseldorf and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Heplays on a 1760 JB Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Barak Norman baroque cello.
Pianist Pei-Shan Lee's playing has been praised in Strad Magazine as "glittering... sensuous, tender, and luminous." The Boston Musical Intelligencer writes of her "gorgeous tone and colorrange" with "monumental orchestral sonorities." The Washington Post hails her as a"consummate" artist, and the Maine Classical Beat commends her gift for "holding it all together... as the composer directing from the piano."Ms. Lee has toured the world with concerts throughout much of Europe, Israel, Asia, and America. Major venues in the United States include Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and WeillRecital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Ms. Lee has also performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Caramoor Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Festival, Heifetz Institute, and Chautauqua Institute. Festivals abroad have included Pro Quartet in France, Great Wall Academy in Beijing, Formosa Chamber Music Festival in Taiwan, and International Piano Festivals in Spain and Russia. Since coming to the United States from Taiwan, Ms. Lee has specialized in the duo repertoire for both strings and woodwinds, and has collaborated with some of America's most important musicians, including her distinguished faculty colleagues at New England Conservatory: violinists Margaret Batjer, Cathy Cho, Ryu Goto, Jacques Israelievitch, Stefan Jackiw, Ani Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, and Ian Swensen; violists Brian Chen, James Dunham, Edward Gazouleas, and Dmitri Murrath; and cellists Robert deMaine, Andres Diaz, and Pieter Wispelwey.
She has appeared in concerts with the Ariel, Formosa, Harlem, Jupiter, and Szymanowski String Quartets, and with principals of the Bavarian Radio, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A member of NEC's Collaborative Piano Faculty, and a passionate advocate for advancing the art of piano-instrumental collaboration, Ms. Lee previously served on the faculty of California State University Northridge, where she created a new MM in Collaborative Piano. Her doctoral thesis, "The Collaborative Pianist: Balancing Roles in Partnership," has become an important resource for schools wishing to begin Collaborative Piano degree programs and has been translated into Chinese. Formerly on the faculty of the Perlman Music Program, she currently directs the Collaborative Piano Fellowship program at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine during the summers.
Originally from Taiwan, Ms. Lee came to the U.S. after winning the Youth Division of Taiwan's National Piano Competition. Based in Boston, she has worked with the Boston Symphony Orchestra's guest conductors and soloists, and participated in the filming of The Portrait, on violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and of Talent Has Hunger, on cellist Paul Katz and his NEC cello studio. She has also held positions at the Chautauqua Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Meadowmount School of Music. Former teachers include Irma Vallecillo, Anne Epperson, Jonathan Feldman, Solomon Mikowsky, and Yu-Yun Chen.
Concord Chamber Music (CCM) seeks to enhance the cultural life of the greater Boston area by presenting affordable concerts of the highest caliber, and through community and educational outreach.
Performances have featured renowned ensembles and artists such as the Juilliard, Borromeo, Muir, Pacifica, Takács, Parker, and Jerusalem Quartets; the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson and Hermitage Piano Trios; Triple Helix; violinists Gil Shaham and Glenn Dicterow; and pianists Yefim Bronfman, Marc-André Hamelin, Menahem Pressler, Jonathan Biss, and Peter Serkin. Concerts also regularly feature members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and acclaimed chamber musicians.
With the 2026-2027 season, CCM begins its 27th year of extraordinary musical experiences.
