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Weinberg: Piano Trio; Violin Sonatina; Double Bass Sonata
CPO

Weinberg: Piano Trio; Violin Sonatina; Double Bass Sonata

$18.99 Only 3 left

Details

Composer
WEINBERG, MIECZYSLAW
Artist
Blumina, Blacher, Ofer, Moser, Shehata
Format
CD
Label
CPO
Released
Apr 29, 2014
Catalog #
777804-2
UPC
761203780426

About



WEINBERG Piano Trio. 1,2,4 Sonatina for Violin and Piano. 1,3 Sonata for Solo Bass 5 • 1 Elisaveta Blumina (pn); 2 Kolja Blacher (vn); 3 Erez Ofer (vn); 4 Johannes Moser (vc); 5 Nabil Shehata (db) • CPO 777804-2 (68:23)


The music of Mieczys?aw Weinberg continues to be issued, and continues to impress. Like his British counterpart, York Bowen, Weinberg was a composer trapped in time and place, and it is good that their very different musics are now coming to the fore with such regularity. One of the wonderful things about this disc, aside from the committed, intense playing of the instrumentalists, is the sound: crisp and clear, with only a very little reverb, which brings the sound of the instruments into sharp focus and makes the listener pay attention to the music.


Like Bowen, Weinberg was largely a tonal composer, although heavily influenced by Bartók and his personal friend Shostakovich. Unlike Shostakovich, however, Weinberg seldom engaged in whining, overwrought musical breast-beating; his aesthetic was geared at bringing out intense personal feelings, but always with good taste and a less mocking or posturing tone. The piano trio that opens this disc is a perfect example. Weinberg immediately grabs our attention with a strident forte tremolo on the violin, and this sets the pace for the musical marvels that follow. The intensity of this piece was inspired, so the notes suggest, by Weinberg’s sight of Polish mothers with their children hugging the legs of Russian horses, begging the Soviet soldiers to let them come over because the Nazis were after them. It was that horrible, that terrifying, and the first movement of this trio reflects that mood. So, too, does the raw power of the ensuing Toccata, which builds up to a powerful fugue; and even the slow movement (“Poem”), which begins softly, still has an undercurrent of menace and unrest, which breaks out in the middle of the movement into an ostinato piano figure, receding in volume and intensity to a quiet, almost submissive ending with the violin playing soft, muted passages. The finale does not toy with a fugue, as did the second movement, but builds up through its quiet opening into a really complex and powerful fugue—oddly enough, based on entirely different thematic material from the opening, which sounds like a Bachian fugue theme. This is clearly one of Weinberg’s masterpieces.


Where do we go from here? To the sonatina for violin and piano from 1946, a piece that sounds like the diametric opposite of the trio. Set primarily in D Minor, but vacillating in and out of F major, the sonatina has touches of melancholy about it, but is primarily a lyrical work with what may be termed episodes of sadness. Here, too, some of the melancholy passages sound related to Jewish folk music without ever really using genuine themes. But ever and anon, Weinberg holds your interest through his amazingly creative sense of construction (would that many of our modern-day American wunderkind composers listen to his work and pay heed to what he does). Nothing in Weinberg’s work is ever flippant, thoughtless, or peripheral; he thinks in terms of the whole picture without sacrificing the detail of internal episodes.


One should be forgiven for thinking in advance that to end this disc with a solo sonata for the rather lugubrious-sounding double bass would be a bit of a downer; after all, solo bass sonatas don’t exactly grow on trees. Yet, after an almost predictably slow first movement, Weinberg becomes much more involved in writing music and not necessarily just writing for the bass, if you know what I mean. His creative forces flowed in one direction, which was towards the creation of fascinating musical forms, and never towards empty virtuosity or just “filling space” with his music. Thus the potential interpreter needs to stay focused not so much on the technical challenges (and there are many in this sonata) as on the musical progression and what it means in terms of expressive content. (I fond it interesting, in the notes, to read that bassist Shehata thinks of it as more “similar to a suite in which each movement is structured very clearly thematically.”) I also noted that, aside from its musical marvels, Weinberg manages to elicit some very interesting sounds from the bass, including percussive effects that almost make it resound like an organ—or, in the last movement, pushing it up into the cello range.


The playing of each musician on this disc, from pianist-director Blumina to double bassist Shehata, is simply astonishing, so deeply rooted in the music that it seems to be an extension of the notes on the page, not an extension of a virtuoso who says to the listener, “Look at me, I’m wonderful!” It is virtuosity that consistently serves the composer and his message, not the ego of the performer. This is a truly great disc.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Tracklist 13 tracks

  1. 1 I. Prelude and Aria: Larghetto 05:11
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Prelude and Aria: Larghetto
    Duration
    05:11
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Kolja Blacher, Johannes Moser, Elisaveta Blumina
  2. 2 II. Toccata: Allegro 04:13
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Toccata: Allegro
    Duration
    04:13
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Kolja Blacher, Johannes Moser, Elisaveta Blumina
  3. 3 III. Poem: Moderato 10:03
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Poem: Moderato
    Duration
    10:03
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Kolja Blacher, Johannes Moser, Elisaveta Blumina
  4. 4 IV. Finale: Allegro moderato 10:54
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Finale: Allegro moderato
    Duration
    10:54
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Kolja Blacher, Johannes Moser, Elisaveta Blumina
  5. 5 I. Allegretto 05:20
    Track
    5
    Title
    I. Allegretto
    Duration
    05:20
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Erez Ofer, Elisaveta Blumina
  6. 6 II. Lento - Allegro - Tempo primo 06:38
    Track
    6
    Title
    II. Lento - Allegro - Tempo primo
    Duration
    06:38
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Erez Ofer, Elisaveta Blumina
  7. 7 III. Allegro moderato - Lento 04:59
    Track
    7
    Title
    III. Allegro moderato - Lento
    Duration
    04:59
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Erez Ofer, Elisaveta Blumina
  8. 8 I. Adagio 04:23
    Track
    8
    Title
    I. Adagio
    Duration
    04:23
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata
  9. 9 II. Allegretto 02:56
    Track
    9
    Title
    II. Allegretto
    Duration
    02:56
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata
  10. 10 III. Moderato 02:44
    Track
    10
    Title
    III. Moderato
    Duration
    02:44
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata
  11. 11 IV. Allegretto 01:28
    Track
    11
    Title
    IV. Allegretto
    Duration
    01:28
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata
  12. 12 V. Lento 03:53
    Track
    12
    Title
    V. Lento
    Duration
    03:53
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata
  13. 13 VI. Allegro molto 05:13
    Track
    13
    Title
    VI. Allegro molto
    Duration
    05:13
    Composer
    Mieczysław Weinberg
    Performer
    Nabil Shehata