Following the success of the Weinberg Symphonies 2 & 21 with conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Deutsche Grammophon releases chamber music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg under the direction of Gidon Kremer. The album features Weinberg's Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, which he completed when he was only 15 and had not yet received any compositional training, Dream About A Doll, and Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 6. Kremer is joined by Yulianna Avdeeva on piano and Giedre Dirvanauskaite on cello.

First complete set of these works on one disc. Marina Tarasova has established herself as an authority in the music of Weinberg whose centenary comes up in December 2019. Her highly acclaimed recording of the concertino on Northern Flowers has been sensationally received

This special edition commemorates Mieczyslaw Weinberg's centennial by highlighting a remarkable, rare four-sonata set for solo viola. In addition to over 90 minutes of unique music-intensely vivid, warm, thought-provoking - this 2-album edition includes a special in-depth essay by Weinberg authority David Fanning, rare historical photographs (some never before published), inputs from several notable personalities and an essay by the performer. "Each bar of this interpretation by Viacheslav Dinerchtein is filled with deep insight and dedication to a genius whose music we should all get to know. The masterful interpretation of these virtually never performed works should arouse the interest of other musicians and music lovers, and I hope the public will be as excited as I am by this recording of the Sonatas for Viola Solo composed by Weinberg, truly a milestone of contemporary viola repertoire" (Gidon Kremer)

Classical Music

This is the first disc in Chandos' exciting new Weinberg Symphonies series. Weinberg was one of the most prolific and inventive creative figures of the twentieth century. The reason for the neglect of his music is largely political, for Weinberg, as a bourgeois Jew, suffered under both Nazism and Soviet Communism. It is only since the barriers between the Soviet Union and the West have been lowered, that scholars worldwide are realizing the importance of Weinberg's legacy. Recorded in: Grzegorz Fitelberg Concert Hall, Katowice, Poland 3-7 March 2003 Producer(s) Beata Jankowska Sound Engineer(s) Beata Jankowska

This four-disc collection brings together the highly acclaimed four individual volumes of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s complete music for piano. A close friend of Shostakovich, who regarded Weinberg as one of the outstanding composers of the day, Weinberg is slowly being afforded his due as a figure of immense significance in the post-modern classical music idiom. A prolific composer, Weinberg’s music stylistically mixes traditional and contemporary forms, combining a freely tonal, individual language inspired by Shostakovich with ethnic influences and a unique sense of form, harmony and color. Pianist Allison Brewster Franzetti has received international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for her stunning virtuosity and musicality. An accomplished accompanist and chamber musician, Ms. Brewster Franzetti joined the faculty of Montclair State University, NJ in 2007.

Reviews of some of the recordings that make up this set:

Volume 1
Franzetti throughout proves a fine guide to this too-little-played music. If one enjoys the music of Prokofiev or Shostakovich, then one would also enjoy the music of Weinberg. In very fine performances here, and in adequate sound (a bit reverberant for my taste), this is a fine release.

– Fanfare

Volume 2
When it comes to sheer musicality Weinberg is up there with the great composers of the last century. Franzetti's faultless technique has enabled her to be a persuasive advocate of this endlessly fascinating and powerfully stated music by a composer whose works are emerging to take their rightful place in the annals of great piano works of the 20th century.

– MusicWeb International

Performances of beauty and great skill - more please!

The wait for the music of a particular composer to be recorded when they have been ill-served in the past is sometimes a long one. In the case of Weinberg it seems as if his time has finally come and new discs of his music are arriving fairly regularly. This is the fourth CD of his music that I’ve reviewed. I know they’ve been others recently, and Amazon now lists over 60. It is great news and if, like me you’ve also found his music to be to your liking then, again like me, you’ll welcome this addition as much as I do. What has emerged as the CDs arrive is what an amazingly rounded composer he was with compositions in almost every genre. Weinberg composed 26 symphonies, seven concertos, 17 string quartets, 28 sonatas for various instruments, seven operas, several ballets, incidental music for 65 films, and many other works, including a Requiem. When Shostakovich received the score of his First Symphony in the post asking him to look at it, he was so impressed he immediately arranged for Weinberg to come to Moscow from Tashkent where he had gone to escape the invading Nazi armies. The two composers became fast friends. While there is no doubt that Weinberg was influenced by Shostakovich, the same was also true the other way round, with each acknowledging the debt to the other. The music on this disc confirms Weinberg’s enormous creative talent and often unique musical view.

One of the biggest difficulties I find in writing reviews is how to describe music I enjoy in different ways. This disc is a case in point as what’s on offer here is so thoroughly impressive and it’s all too easy to find that I’m repeating myself while I struggle to find words to express how marvellous I find the music. With this firmly in mind I’ll do my best to try because this music deserves no less. Right from the very first note you know you’re in for something special. The mellifluous tone of the beautifully played clarinet wafts in as if on a breeze while waiting for its piano accompaniment. It’s not long before you can hear why people refer to Shostakovich when writing about the music of Weinberg. Indeed the booklet notes the considerable influence the older composer had on the younger man who wrote both the clarinet sonata and the twelve miniatures in 1945, just two years after arriving in Moscow at Shostakovich’s behest. The second and third movements may also remind one of Shostakovich. That is mainly because the Jewish folk tunes Weinberg based much of the material on are sources that Shostakovich also drew on, sources that he used, with Weinberg’s help, in his From Jewish Folk Poetry (1948). The writing is witty and satirical. Weinberg’s scoring for clarinet reflects its use in much of the klezmer music that had been written since the nineteenth century in which the clarinet was steadily replacing the violin. Music like this was in Weinberg’s very bones since his father was a composer and violinist in a travelling Jewish theatre. There should be no surprise that it should feature so recognisably in his music. It is hard to imagine how he could write such happy sounding music when only four years earlier, before fleeing first to Minsk then to Tashkent, the Nazis had burned alive his entire family. This is not to say that the music does not have a dark side too. The end of the sonata is tinged with sadness but it is optimism that I see as winning through.

The Twelve Miniatures for Flute and Piano Op.29 opens with a tune that not only doesn’t sound like Weinberg, but sounds French to me rather than Russian which only shows this composer cannot be pigeonholed. The second has him back firmly where you expect with a wistful little waltz, marked Arietta, while the third is a merry Burlesque, followed by a comic Capriccio. Various other moods are represented but the main feature throughout is the brilliance of these little character pieces that charm and delight in equal measure and conclude with a really lovely Pastorale. Weinberg’s sonata for solo bassoon shows his continued search for expression in music and his willingness to write for less usual instruments: his Op.108 is for solo double bass. There are very few composers that have tackled any music for solo bassoon and those that have such as Willson Osborne, Malcolm Arnold, Gordon Jacob and Karl-Heinz Stockhausen - whose piece In Freundschaft was originally written for bass clarinet and has been adapted for various other instruments - kept their works fairly short. Weinberg’s composition is a substantial one of four movements and a total length of over 21 minutes. Incidentally readers would no doubt enjoy a YouTube presentation of Stephanie Patterson playing the Stockhausen work dressed as a teddy bear which is Stockhausen’s wish fulfilled at last! Weinberg’s Bassoon Sonata from 1981 really tests the prowess of the soloist and the writing reveals an instrument capable of great beauty rescuing it from the denizens of the woodwind section where its abilities are usually confined to helping provide a background. Matthias Baier’s playing is simply superb and the piece could find no greater performer to emphasise its wonderfully melodious nature. The final work on this disc is the Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp which dates from 1979 and is yet another surprise that recalls Debussy’s late work for the same three instruments. This begins with a meditative theme on flute and viola before the harp joins in to weave its version into the fabric already established. The second movement is slow to begin with but its warm viola introduction is disturbed by trilling from the flute mirrored in the harp though calm is soon restored. The three share a lovely melody between them for a short while before a more intensive and insistent mood is created. This leads into the final movement which, though short, is more anxious in tone and powerful in execution. It ends in a final eruption from all three.

While it is self-evident that the more often any music is heard the more one gets from it there is an immediate appeal in the music on this disc. That’s something I’ve found with all of this composer’s works that I’ve heard so far. It’s a facility that should help in establishing his reputation still further and secure his place as, what many musicologists declare, the third great composer of the Soviet era after Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Weinberg often wrote music that contained satire and wit but that lacked the sardonic even mordant nature of much of Shostakovich’s works. Here was a man who, despite the terrifying experiences in his life that included spending some months in prison under Stalin, still managed to reflect hope and optimism in his music.

This disc is another fitting tribute to a composer whose works are finally emerging to enrapture new and wider audiences. The musicians on this disc have made a significant contribution to the process, all of them turning in performances of beauty and great skill. Elisaveta Blumina deserves special plaudits for her pioneering work on behalf of Weinberg; her disc of his Piano Works on CPO 777 517-2 is another great example. More please!


-- Steve Arloff , MusicWeb International

Gradually and fortunately, for some years now the extensive and highly significant oeuvre of the Polish-Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg has also been discovered and recognized in the West – a process also documented on our internationally highly regarded cpo recordings. During the 1960s Weinberg’s reputation was not only restored but also soared on high – at least in the Soviet Union. Interpreters of the rank of Rostropovich, Gilels, Kondrashin, Leonid Kogan, and the Borodin Quartet joined David Oistrach in his enthusiastic propagation of Weinberg’s music. The Symphony No. 10 is the most stylistically advanced and experimental composition among his purely instrumental works. In conjunction with her research on Dmitri Shostakovich’s life, the Polish violinist and composer Evelina Novicka’s attention was also drawn to the composer Weinberg. Impressed by his compositions, she has recorded several premieres of his works, including the Concertino op. 42 and Rhapsody op. 47 heard on this most recent CD. She herself has arranged the lost version of the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes for violin and orchestra. - cpo (Translated from German text.)

Mieczyslaw Weinberg is now recognized as one of the outstanding Russian composers of the second half of the twentieth century. Fêted for his symphonies and string quartets, he also wrote a sequence of Violin Sonatas crucial to the development of his distinctive and elusive musical idiom. Shostakovich's influence is evident in the Third Violin Sonata, as are Jewish melodic elements, while the Fourth Violin Sonata is alternately somebre and hectic. His masterpiece is the Fifth Violin Sonata, symphonic in scale but subtle in form, and containing some of his most affecting writing.

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REVIEW:

Weinberg has his own way of moving between moods, is often serious, and can be suave, gruff or playful. He is estimably served by the thoughtful and responsive Russian violinist Grigory Kalinovsky, who brings clarity and variety of tone to the music, and is in turn strongly supported by Tatiana Goncharova. Together they form a terrific partnership able to project this repertoire with unstinting verve and delicacy.

– Classical Ear (Ivor Solomons)

The works on this first volume of the complete piano works of Mieczysowski range from very early yet characterful Mazurkas and the remarkably intense Lullaby, his Opus 1, to the at times dissonant Piano Sonata No 1.

The second volume of Weinberg's complete piano works ranges in date from 1950-55. Allison Brewster FranzettI 2008 GRAMMY-� Nominee for Best Instrumental Soloist without Orchestra for 20th Century Piano Sonatas on Naxos Records, Allison Brewster Franzetti has received international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for stunning virtuosity and musicality. "Allison Brewster Franzetti's impassioned and persuasive performance easily holds it's own in the select company of Gould, Perahia, Aimard, and Uchida" - Jed Distler, Classics Today.

Mieczyslav Weinberg (aka Moisey Vainberg) was in fact born and raised in Poland, but the vast majority of his compositional career was in the Soviet Union and he remained there for the rest of his life, in Minsk (now the capital of independent Belarus). He therefore comes well within the definition of 'Russian' for the purpose of this series and was certainly treated as such by the authorities. This and the succeeding album which includes the remaining three sonatas, were originally released on the now defunct Olympia label but had a relatively short life and restricted distribution, and until 2012, still the only full recordings of these very fine works. This is music which though modern is written to comply with Soviet requirements and is thus also very approachable and melodic without ever being trite or unoriginal.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gabriel Chmura.

The ongoing, critically acclaimed Chandos series of orchestral works by Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919–96) now explores some of the composer’s lesser-known late works. This disc features the last two Chamber Symphonies, which indeed reflect a largely hidden yet still prolific period of his life. The highly experienced and versatile Thord Svedlund conducts the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, here recording with Chandos for the first time. Not only is Chamber Symphony No. 4 the penultimate work that Weinberg completed, but it can also be read as a summation of his entire life and oeuvre. The elegiac mood shaping the piece echoes his last decade – of infirmity, loss and gradual decline in public and professional interest in his work. Apart from the sad, wistful last movement (Andantino) heralding No. 4, Chamber Symphony No. 3 is closely linked to his Fifth String Quartet, op. 27 through its recitative-like melody. At the same time, it perfectly justifies both the term ‘Chamber Symphony’ and the orchestra here playing it: the Helsingborg Symphony, one of Sweden’s oldest, was founded in 1912 originally as a chamber orchestra.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is the fourth album in a series from Chandos dedicated to the orchestral works of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Thord Svedlund. The cello soloist is Claes Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s leading cellists, who combines the post as Principal Cello of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with a brilliant solo career.

After the Second World War, along with many other composers, Weinberg was subjected to a series of campaigns against so-called Formalism in the Soviet arts. As a result he turned his attention to concertante works, a medium less prone to censure than symphonies, sonatas, and quartets. The first movement of the Cello Concerto shares the tense, pensive lyricism found in the opening Nocturne of Shostakovich’s almost exactly contemporaneous First Violin Concerto. This later gives way to the rhythms of a habanera and some impassioned passages of Jewish klezmer, almost as if to guarantee a healthy quota of folk-rooted intonations (a required antidote to charges of Formalism), while at the same time allowing for deeper emotions too. In the 1970s, Weinberg’s symphonic production went in two distinct but complementary directions. One of these was at the patriotic end of the Socialist Realist spectrum, while the other was much more abstract. Weinberg’s highly austere five-movement Symphony No. 20 clearly falls into the latter category – challenging, perplexing, and unpredictable. In the second scherzo Weinberg quotes from his opera The Portrait, based on a short story by Gogol. In fact, the finale perfectly captures the mood of the opera’s closing scenes, in which the artist protagonist realises that he has betrayed his calling, and sinks into delirium and eventual death.

A previous volume in the Weinberg series (Chandos 5089: Symphony No. 3 and Suite No. 4 from The Golden Key) was nominated for a Grammy this year, in the Best Engineered Album category.