When cellist Alexander Wollheim’s brand-new A string broke on stage, an appeal for help was made to the audience
The semi-final round of the Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition took place from 11–16 May in Flagey, Brussels, Belgium, with candidates playing both a recital and a separate concerto performance with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie and conductor Vahan Mardirossian. The Strad covered the results, which can be read here.
However, on 15 May, one competitor’s recital performance took an unexpected turn in his very first piece. Accompanied by pianist Dina Ivanova, German cellist Alexander Wollheim was performing the commissioned work, Caffeine by Harold Noben, when his A string snapped during a pizzicato section.
The performance was halted, and an announcement made shortly afterwards by presenter Stéphanie Coerten:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to have one moment of your attention. It seems that he’d just changed one of his strings yesterday, meaning he doesn’t have a spare one. So I was wondering, because I know that we have many musicians and some of the candidates in the audience, does anybody have an A string?’
The request prompted a flurry of activity, including among the jury members and Noben.
Coerten subsequently made another announcement, this time in French:
‘I have good news! Thanks to the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, we just got an A string sent by “express delivery” backstage.’
Wollheim and Ivanova were then welcomed back to the stage to perform once more.
You can watch Radio-Télévision Belge Francophone’s Musiq3 coverage of the moment below, and find out which cellists have been selected for the final round of the competition from 25–30 May here.
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