Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
- 28,003
- 9,608
- 910
Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphony No. 21, subtitled “Kaddish,” begins with a full-throated lamentation for strings. The passage is in C minor, but it mixes unadulterated triads with dissonances, like a monumental structure that has partly collapsed. There follows a keening violin solo, inspired by a phrase from Mahler’s song “Das Irdische Leben” (“Mother, oh mother, I am starving”), after which the entire orchestra enters, glinting in cold sunlight. The first movement of Weinberg’s symphony, lasting nearly nineteen minutes, keeps circling back to that opening gesture, amid increasingly quizzical detours—trudging pizzicato chords, a klezmerish clarinet solo, a wistful violin-and-harp duet, meandering trumpets. After a quiet restatement of the string oration, something heart-stopping happens: a piano haltingly plays a phrase from Chopin’s Ballade in G Minor, then falls silent. The solo violin tries to pick up the melody, without success. In the desolate coda, a celesta chimes gently, like a music box in the rubble.
Weinberg, a Polish-Jewish composer who spent most of his life in the Soviet Union, has recently stepped out of the historical mists, encroaching on the mainstream repertory. He lived from 1919 to 1996 and long dwelled in the shadow of his older contemporary Dmitri Shostakovich. As more of his huge output emerges, though, his originality becomes clear. The Quatuor Danel has recorded Weinberg’s seventeen string quartetsand is now playing them widely, honoring a body of work that rivals Shostakovich’s cycle in heft. A new Deutsche Grammophon recording of Symphonies No. 2 and No. 21, with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony, is an even greater revelation. The “Kaddish” is a gaunt requiem for a succession of twentieth-century tragedies, of which Weinberg experienced more than his share.
The Wrenching, Rediscovered Compositions of Mieczyslaw Weinberg
I have never heard of him. It's different.
Weinberg, a Polish-Jewish composer who spent most of his life in the Soviet Union, has recently stepped out of the historical mists, encroaching on the mainstream repertory. He lived from 1919 to 1996 and long dwelled in the shadow of his older contemporary Dmitri Shostakovich. As more of his huge output emerges, though, his originality becomes clear. The Quatuor Danel has recorded Weinberg’s seventeen string quartetsand is now playing them widely, honoring a body of work that rivals Shostakovich’s cycle in heft. A new Deutsche Grammophon recording of Symphonies No. 2 and No. 21, with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony, is an even greater revelation. The “Kaddish” is a gaunt requiem for a succession of twentieth-century tragedies, of which Weinberg experienced more than his share.
The Wrenching, Rediscovered Compositions of Mieczyslaw Weinberg
I have never heard of him. It's different.
