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Cellist Alisa Weilerstein has appeared with leading orchestras all over the U.S. and Europe and has played chamber music with her parents, both well-known performers, in the Weilerstein Trio. Unusually among classical musicians, she is the recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. Her repertory is wide but has been marked by a focus on contemporary music. Weilerstein has a substantial recording catalog that includes the album Brahms: Cello Sonatas (2024).

Weilerstein was born in Rochester, New York, on April 14, 1982. Her parents are Donald Weilerstein, first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet, and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein; violinist and conductor Joshua Weilerstein is her brother. At age two-and-a-half, Weilerstein contracted chickenpox. As she recuperated, her mother created a makeshift cello from a Rice Krispies box. Alisa was delighted but frustrated that the instrument could not produce musical notes, and she demanded a real cello. At four, she received one, and within six months, she was performing in public. As a child, Weilerstein performed Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, with the Cleveland Orchestra. Two years later, she performed with the New York Youth Symphony. In 2000, she released her debut album, Alisa Weilerstein, Cello, on the Angel label.

Weilerstein attended Columbia University, majoring in Russian history and graduating in 2004. Her career was propelled by several major awards and grants, including the Leonard Bernstein Prize at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2006, and, most important, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a "genius grant," in 2011. She used some of the proceeds of the latter to develop relationships with living composers. She has not just championed contemporary music but has premiered multiple pieces by such composers as Osvaldo Golijov and Lera Auerbach. Weilerstein has also played the difficult Cello Concerto of Elliott Carter, selecting that work for her first recording on the Decca label in 2012.

In traditional repertory, Weilerstein has appeared as a concerto soloist with numerous major orchestras around the U.S. and Europe, including such Central European stalwarts as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, and the Czech Philharmonic, with which she toured the U.S. as a soloist in Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. In 2018, she began a multi-year engagement as Artistic Partner to Norway's innovative Trondheim Soloists. She recorded for Decca from 2012 to 2016, and since then for PentaTone Classics. On that label, she released the album Bach, featuring that composer's six suites for solo cello, in 2020. In the early 2020s, she released a pair of recordings with pianist Inon Barnatan, Beethoven: Cello Sonatas (2022) and Brahms: Cello Sonatas (2024); the latter album included a transcription for cello and piano by the performers of the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78. A sufferer from Type 1 diabetes, Weilerstein has served as a celebrity spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. ~ James Manheim

Edward Elgar, one of the pre-eminent musical figures of his time, bridged the 19th and 20th centuries as the finest English composer since the days of Handel and Purcell. His compositions have been recorded countless times, and many have become mainstays in the classical repertoire throughout the world.

Elgar was born in Broadheath, England, on June 2, 1857. His father owned a music shop and was a church organist who taught his son piano, organ, and violin; apart from this instruction, Elgar was practically self-taught as a musician. At the age of 16, the composer became a freelance musician, and for the remainder of his life, he never took a permanent job. He conducted locally, performed, taught, and composed, scraping by until his marriage to Caroline Alice Roberts, a published novelist of some wealth, in 1889. Elgar had by this time achieved only limited recognition. He and his wife moved to London, where he scarcely fared better in advancing his career. The couple eventually retreated to Worcester, Elgar suffering from bitter self-doubt and depression. Alice stood by him the entire time, her unfailing confidence restoring his spirits. He was further buoyed by the success of his Imperial March, Op. 32, which earned him a publisher and a vital friendship with August Jaeger, his editor and confidant. In 1899, Elgar composed one of his best-known works, the "Enigma" Variations, Op. 36, which catapulted him to fame. The work is a cryptic tribute to Alice and to the many friends who stood behind the composer in the shaky early days of his career. Conductor Hans Richter proclaimed it a masterpiece, and his performances of the work in Britain and Germany established the composer's lasting success.

Elgar's most fruitful period was the first decade of the 20th century, during which he wrote some of his noblest, most expressive music, including the Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op. 55 (1907-1908), and the Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61 (1909-1910). His best-known works from this period, however, are the first four of his Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901-1907); the first of these, subtitled "Land of Hope and Glory," became an unofficial second national anthem for the British Empire.

Elgar suffered a blow when Jaeger (the "Nimrod" of the "Enigma" Variations) died in 1909. The composer's productivity dropped, and the horrors of World War I deepened his melancholy outlook. His music became more intimate, even anguished. Still, he wrote some of his best chamber music during this period, as well as the masterly Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 (1919), whose deep feeling of sadness and impending loss surely relates to the final illness of his faithful Alice, who died in 1920.

For some time after her death, Elgar wrote little of significance, but he made a historical foray into the recording studios when new electrical recording processes were developed. The fortunate result was a number of masterly interpretations of his orchestral music that have survived for posterity. In the early 1930s, Elgar set to work on a third symphony, left unfinished at his death in Worcester on February 23, 1934. The work was brought to a generally well-received realization by Anthony Payne in the late 1990s and was subsequently recorded. ~ Rovi Staff

The Staatskapelle Berlin, or Berlin State Orchestra, has an extraordinarily long history the reflects much of the central European history of music in its relationship to the state. Since the ascension of international superstar conductor Daniel Barenboim to the podium in 1992, the group has emerged as a major force on the international concert and recording scene. Several dates may be given for the founding of what became the Staatskapelle Berlin, but it took shape in the middle and late 16th century as the court of the Elector of Brandenburg developed new musical ensembles and began to forge close ties with the Prussian monarchy. In 1701 it became the Royal Prussian Court Orchestra, and as such attracted top musicians including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Joachim Quantz. In 1783 the orchestra gave one of the first modern symphonic concerts, independently of the court, at the Hotel Paris, and through the 19th century it was a giant of European musical life, with conductors including Spontini, Meyerbeer, and, from 1899 to 1913, Richard Strauss. For all of this period, and down to the present day, the orchestra also served as the house orchestra of the Royal Court Opera, established in 1742 by Frederick the Great and in modern times renamed the Berlin State Opera. The same conductor serves as Staatskapellmeister or state music director of both ensembles. During World War II, Herbert von Karajan served as music director. After the war, due to its location in East Berlin, the orchestra came under the control of what would become East Germany. It maintained some connections with the non-Communist West; its conductor from 1964 to 1990 was the Austrian Otmar Suitner, who was able to travel fairly freely between East and West. After German reunification, Daniel Barenboim became the orchestra's first non-German conductor in modern times and has been successful in bringing the orchestra's international profile to a new level. The orchestra made its first appearance at the BBC Proms in 2013 (in a cycle of Wagner's Ring operas), and in 2017 performed a complete cycle of Bruckner's symphonies at Carnegie Hall in New York (the first-ever such cycle mounted in the U.S.). The orchestra has recorded prolifically for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Teldec, Denon, Berlin Classics, and Warner Classics, among other labels, releasing a set of Brahms' four symphonies with Barenboim conducting in 2018. ~ James Manheim

Some believe Elliott Carter to be the greatest American-born composer; no less an authority than Igor Stravinsky considered Carter's Double Concerto (1961) the first true American masterpiece. Certainly he was one of the most intellectually rigorous composers of his or any other time. Carter's work is characterized largely by its rhythmic complexity, befitting a man who was a serious student of mathematics. Initially a neo-classicist, Carter went on to embrace aspects of 12-tone composition and serialism. Carter invented a concept he called "metric modulation," which musicologist/composer Nicolas Slonimsky described as a system "in which secondary rhythms in a polyrhythmic section assume dominance expressed in constantly changing meters, often in such unusual time signatures as 10/16, 21/8, etc." Adding to his importance as a composer was his long life and prolific output; Carter remained vital as a composer even after passing the age of 100, with little or no discernible decline in the quality of his work.

In his youth, Carter's parents bought insurance from Charles Ives; young Carter went on to edit the by-then disabled composer's manuscripts. He went to high school in New York City and attended Harvard in the late 1920s, majoring in literature and languages. He also studied piano at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1930 he devoted himself to music full-time. While still at Harvard, he studied counterpoint with Walter Piston and orchestration with Edward Burlingame Hill; in 1932 he attended a seminar by Gustav Holst. After receiving his M.A. that year, Carter went to Paris, where he studied with the renowned composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. During this period he also studied mathematics. In 1935 he returned to the U.S. For several years he worked in ballet and for the Office of War Information. In 1946 he finished his Piano Sonata, a piece replete with the constantly shifting time signatures and complex rhythms that became typical of his work. His music never got easier, either for the performer or the listener.

Carter also spent a great deal of time teaching as well as composing. His various pedagogical appointments included St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland (1939-1941), the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore (1946-1948), Columbia University (1948-1950), and Yale (1958-1962). He was also a professor-at-large at Cornell University (1967-1968). Carter received many honors for his compositions, including two Guggenheim fellowships (1945 and 1959), and the American Prix de Rome (1953). In 1960 his String Quartet No. 2 won a Pulitzer Prize. He won another Pulitzer in 1973 for his String Quartet No. 3. Then-president Ronald Reagan honored Carter with the National Medal of the Arts in 1985. Although Carter's music has never attained anything like the popularity accorded the work of a contemporary like Aaron Copland, he always received his due among critics and academics. His fellow musicians also venerated him; such younger composers as Oliver Knussen and Franco Donatoni acknowledge his influence. Elliott Carter died at his home in Greenwich Village on November 5, 2012; he was 103 years old. ~ Chris Kelsey

Daniel Barenboim is a conductor and pianist of top international stature, known for an extraordinarily large orchestral and operatic repertoire. He is the general music director and chief conductor for life of the Staatsoper Berlin in Germany.

Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires on November 15, 1942, into a family of Ukrainian Jewish descent. His mother was his first piano teacher. He later studied with his father, Enrique Barenboim, who was an eminent music professor. After playing for the noted violinist Adolf Busch, who was impressed by his talent, Daniel made his debut recital at the age of seven. In 1951, he played at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and observed Igor Markevitch's conducting class. The family moved to Israel in 1952; two years later, Barenboim went back to Salzburg for a conducting course with Markevitch, piano studies with Edwin Fischer, and chamber music performance with Enrico Mainardi. He studied conducting with Carlo Zecchi at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, also attending Nadia Boulanger's music theory and composition class at Fontainebleau. His U.S. debut was at New York's Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1957, in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Symphony of the Air.

Debuts with leading orchestras included the London Symphony Orchestra (New York, 1968), Berlin Philharmonic (1969), and New York Philharmonic (1970). In 1967, Barenboim married the brilliant cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, with whom he made several exceptional recital recordings. Unfortunately, this partnership ended when Du Pré contracted multiple sclerosis, which forced her to end her playing career in 1972. She died in 1987. Barenboim began a long association with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 1972, and the following year, issued a recording of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E flat major ("Romantic") with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has maintained long relationships with both that orchestra and with Bruckner's music. In 1982, Barenboim issued an album of music by Ravel with the Orchestre de Paris. He has guest conducted virtually all of the world's leading orchestras.

In 1989, he was named Sir Georg Solti's successor as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Barenboim became music director of the Staatsoper Berlin in 1992, then was named chief conductor for life by its orchestra in 2002. In 1999, along with Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, Barenboim co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a summer youth orchestra designed to foster understanding and cooperation, and he established the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. Devoted to the training of young Arab and Israeli musicians, the school opened in 2016. A recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra appeared in 2013, and the group has spawned several young musicians with international careers, sometimes performing and recording with Barenboim.

Barenboim has a rich recorded repertoire as a conductor, pianist, accompanist, and chamber music player. Interestingly, as a pianist he tends to focus on Mozart, Beethoven, and the early Romantics, while as a conductor he favors later Romantic music, particularly Brahms and Bruckner (he has won a medal from the Bruckner Society of America). Barenboim's recorded output continued to be abundant through his ninth decade, including not only standard repertory but such novelties as On My New Piano (2016), an album devoted to the capabilities of an instrument custom-made for Barenboim by builder Chris Maene and based on a piano owned by Liszt. As a conductor, he continued to undertake lengthy, difficult scores by the likes of Bruckner and Mahler. His 2017 recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the Staatskapelle Berlin was critically acclaimed. He has often issued more than a dozen recordings in the course of a single year, and by 2022, his recorded output included well over 500 releases. Early that year, he already had three albums on the docket for release: an album of Mozart and Strauss oboe concertos with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy, an album of piano encores, and the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert, which he has conducted multiple times. However, in early 2023, Barenboim stepped down from the Staatsoper, as his health prevented him from carrying out his duties to their fullest. ~ Joseph Stevenson & James Manheim

Max Bruch was a German composer who is remembered today primarily for his concertante works, but he was well known in the 19th century for his choral works. Viewed as a promising talent in his youth with an impressive technical and artistic mastery, he was considered a leading composer working in the traditional Romantic idiom until Brahms wrote his First Symphony. Because of his steadfast opposition to the New German School of Wagner and Liszt, and later to the music of "modernists" Strauss, Wolf, and Reger, Bruch gained the reputation of a conservative, and this label still alienates many listeners who accept an evolutionary paradigm of music history. The three works by Bruch that remain in the repertoire are his popular Violin Concerto No. 1, the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and the single movement for cello and orchestra Kol Nidrei, but most of his other compositions -- including piano pieces, operas, symphonies, and other orchestral works -- are rarely performed and recorded. He was respected in his maturity as an educator and also conducted in posts as widely separated as Liverpool and Breslau.

Bruch was born in Cologne, on January 6, 1838. He took piano lessons from his mother, a voice teacher and former professional singer. Bruch started composing as a child, displaying an extraordinary musical talent that was recognized as such by Ignaz Moscheles. In 1852, he wrote a symphony and a string quartet, the latter work bringing him a scholarship from the Frankfurt-based Mozart foundation, which enabled him to study from 1853 to 1857: the piano with Ferdinand Breunung and Carl Reinecke, and composition with Ferdinand Hiller, who would become a lifelong friend and adviser. In 1858, having embarked on a teaching career in Cologne, he produced his first work bearing an opus number: the comic opera Scherz, List und Rache, Op. 1, after Goethe. In 1861, Bruch departed for Berlin, where he would spend time making valuable contacts with luminaries of the day like von Bülow and Taubert. From 1862 to 1864, he lived in Mannheim, where he wrote his cantata Frithjof and the opera Die Loreley, both of which audiences received with great enthusiasm.

After leaving his Mannheim post, Bruch visited Paris and Brussels, eventually accepting the position of music director in Koblenz in 1865. Before leaving that post in 1867, he produced the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, and several choral works. He moved on to Sonderhausen and achieved more success with his Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. In 1870, Bruch moved to Berlin, where his third opera, Hermione, was produced in 1872. It was a failure, but his choral work Odysseus (1872) triumphed. Between 1873 and 1878, enjoying his reputation as an eminent German composer, Bruch worked independently in Bonn. After the glorious 1878 premiere in England of his Violin Concerto No. 2, the same work was received coldly back in Bonn, where it shared the bill with the newly composed First Symphony by Brahms, upon which critics heaped lavish praise. Thereafter, Bruch lived in the shadow of Brahms. Nevertheless, he turned out two of his most popular works in the period of 1878 to 1880: the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, and Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra.

Bruch then accepted the position of conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic in 1880, and married 17-year-old contralto Clara Tuczek, on January 3, 1881. In 1883 Bruch became director of the Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) Orchesterverein, where he stayed through the end of the season in 1890. During that period, he composed several significant choral works, including Achilleus (1885) and the cantata Das Feuerkreuz (1889). In 1891, he was appointed professor of composition at the Berlin Akademie, where he remained until his retirement in 1910; he retained his rank as a professor there until his death in 1920. Bruch declared his 1893 In Memoriam, for violin and orchestra (without strings), his best work. In his later years, the composer focused more on small-scale works, such as the 1910 Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola, and piano. Bruch died on October 20, 1920. ~ TiVo Staff