"I compared this performance to one by cellist Morten Zeuthen on Dacapo and found that he played the score more like music and less like effects. So the cat is out of the bag! For all her great technique, Smith has very little concept of musical style. She revels in the novelty of the pieces she plays, but unless the audience is familiar with the music she is performing-and most, including myself, would not know unless we compared her to someone else-they wouldn't know that this music can be made to sound more attractive than how she plays it. Just to be sure, I checked out Zeuthen's recording of the Nørgård Solo Sonata No. 1, and yet again I found that I enjoyed the music much better in his reading, so much so that it almost sounds like an entirely different piece ... So there you go. The music itself is interesting, but Smith's playing really and truly isn't"

"Wilhelmina Smith's lustrous sonority, wide dynamic range, and impeccable control in the highest registers bring forth the music's potential for color and drama ... An unqualified recommendation for the Nørgård, but listeners interested in the Ruders should sample both Smith and Zeuthen"

"Den amerikanske cellist Wilhelmina Smith indspillede en række solo-celloværker af Esa-Pekka Salonen og Kaija Saariaho i 2019, der alle bød på et fængslende og nærværende udtryk. Hendes lyd har både en vovet klang og en delikat lethed over sig ... Per Nørgårds to cellosonater er komponeret tidligt i hans karriere ... Sonaterne er skrevet i en lyrisk stil ... Poul Ruders' 'Bravourstudien' stammer fra 1976 og ... indebærer, at solisten både skal fløjte og nynne undervejs"

"The American cellist brings much to the works here but the most admirable quality of all is an extreme clarity that suits the music ... Smith explains their rubric as clearly as possible, which serves the bigger structure. The accuracy of her intonation, here and everywhere, is uncanny (the Nørgård Sonatas) ... Faced with her own extraordinary range of technical and expressive abilities, still errs toward a less-is-more approach - truly an honorary Scandinavian (Ruders)"