Interview, Alisa Weilerstein on Dvorak

It's been a whirlwind year for Alisa Weilerstein, with two BBC Music Magazine Awards for her recording of the Elgar and Carter concertos with Daniel Barenboim, a new disc of Dvorak, and a plethora of major international engagements. We caught up with Alisa over the phone last week during the Tel Aviv leg of her current tour, which runs until the end of July and sees her performing a wide variety of solo repertoire and concertos across the Middle East, US and Australasia. Here's what she had to say about Dvorak and her future plans…

Tell us a little about your relationship with the Dvorak concerto: when did you first encounter it and how has your interpretation evolved over the years?

I first encountered it... before I can remember! It was always my most beloved, favourite piece in the world - when I started playing the cello at the age of four, it was my ultimate aim to play it with every orchestra in the world. That's what I would have told you my ambition was for when I grew up. But I first properly encountered it when I was about 12 - that's when I started to learn it seriously - and I actually made my Carnegie Hall debut with it when I was about 14, with the New York Symphony. It's probably my most frequently-played repertoire.

As for my interpretation - of course one has to adjust to different orchestras, different halls, different conductors... I've performed it with so many different people and had so many different views on it, for instance from Daniel Barenboim - I was doing the Elgar concerto with him a few years ago. It was the first time I'd played for him, and he was tremendously generous with his time.

Steven Isserlis's recording of the Dvorak Concerto came out relatively recently; did you consciously avoid that, or did you listen to it and engage with it?

I consciously didn't listen to any recordings! I have enormous respect for Steven and I would love to hear his recording now, but while I was recording I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's ideas.

It's interesting that both you and Isserlis have paired this concerto with the Lied "Lasst mich allein", which was of some personal significance to Dvorak through his connection to Josefina Kounic and makes an autobiographical appearance in the concerto itself. Do you feel hearing the song on its own helps one to better understand the concerto?

Yes, it was very important to me not only to put this track on the CD but to put it immediately after the concerto, because it makes the connection even more obvious to the listener. I think it's got such a theme of longing and unrequited love, which is so prevalent in the concerto - it's one of the many, many moving aspects of it. The re-occurrence of the song toward the end of the last movement is, I think, one of the most moving moments, so I wanted to make that connection.

The other shorter items on the disc seem to be a mixture of Dvorak favourites - did you think of these just as "bonus" tracks, or do you feel they reveal other sides of Dvorak as a composer that don't come out in the concerto?

I definitely see them as much more than bonus tracks. There are only three cello pieces, strictly speaking - the Rondo, the Polonaise and Silent Woods - and we tried to get as much variety as possible in terms of tempi and mood, and even keys - I rediscovered how fond Dvorak is of the key of B major! And I think they reveal some of my favourite sides of Dvorak, that is to say the natural side, with this combination of intimacy and generosity.

Is there anything else in the pipeline that you can tell us about in terms of recording plans?

I'm planning a solo album - unaccompanied, just me, myself and I! - that'll be coming out either right at the end of 2014 or at the very beginning of 2015. Of course, the Kodaly solo sonata will be the centrepiece of the album, and it will also include works by Gaspar Cassadó, Bright Sheng, Ligeti, Britten and Prokofiev.

Recent recordings from Alisa Weilerstein: