01 - 24 Twenty Four Preludes_Op.100
25 - 27 Sonata for Solo Cello No.1 Op.72

Josef Feigelson - cello

The music of Soviet Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (also known as Moises Weinberg) has enjoyed a modest revival as the issues surrounding who left for the West and who stayed and made the best of a bad situation begin to recede. The music on this fascinating album reflects that schism in several ways, and the notes by Latvian-born cellist Josef Feigelson (in English only) will be worth the price for students of Soviet music. Feigelson is, for now, the champion of the 24 Preludes for solo cello, Op. 100, and the story of how he came to perform and record them is illustrative in itself. After finding them in a small-town music store, he prepared to leave the Soviet Union himself. As he scheduled his final recitals in the country, pianists regarded him as a defector (although his emigration followed legal channels) and refused to perform with him, so he turned to Weinberg, whom he had previously disdained as an "official" Soviet composer. Later he learned that Weinberg had written the preludes (and the shorter Sonata for solo cello No. 1, Op. 72, that rounds out the program) for Mstislav Rostropovich, who refused to perform them after he left for America. In response to Feigelson's question, Rostropovich angrily called the non-dissident Weinberg a coward. But the next generation often can see past the individual choices to the music, and Feigelson is unlikely to be the last cellist to perform the preludes.

For players, they have the attractive feature of being susceptible to slicing and dicing in several different ways. They might be thought of as a mixture of the Bach and Chopin prelude-set concepts, using a variety of 20th century techniques (none, of course, too adventurous, but this isn't socialist realism, either). That is, they ascend through the keys, or at least tonal centers, beginning with C, but each prelude is also a study in a certain texture or motive and its possible implications. A sensitive and committed cellist is a necessity, and Feigelson definitely qualifies as one, but these are not showpiece works. Originally recorded in 1996 with decent sound from a New York college recital hall and released on the Olympia label, this was a fine choice for reissue on Naxos, with its focus on neglected national styles. ---James Manheim, Rovi

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01. Cello Sonata No. 1, Op. 21 - I. Lento ma non troppo    [0:08:48.74]
02. Cello Sonata No. 1, Op. 21 - II. Un poco moderato - Lento ma non troppo    [0:10:20.43]
03. Cello Solo Sonata No. 1, Op. 72 - I. Adagio    [0:07:15.69]
04. Cello Solo Sonata No. 1, Op. 72 - II. Allegretto    [0:03:29.54]
05. Cello Solo Sonata No. 1, Op. 72 - III. Allegro    [0:04:15.41]
06. Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 63 - I. Moderato    [0:06:42.61]
07. Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 63 - II. Andante    [0:08:20.64]
08. Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 63 - III. Allegro    [0:06:30.45]


Alexander Chaushian – cello
Yevgeny Sudbin - piano

Born in Warsaw but forced to flee to Minsk and then Tashkent before finally settling in Moscow, Mieczysław Weinberg was, as Shostakovich remarked, ‘one of the most outstanding composers of the present day’ and a close friend of the older composer. His Cello Sonatas, the second of which was composed for Rostropovich, make masterful use of the cello’s expressive capabilities, while his sonatas for solo cello have been likened in importance to the suites of J.S. Bach. The first and third of these in particular, dedicated to Rostropovich, are significant contributions to the instrument’s repertoire. ---naxos.com

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CD1
1. 	Sonate Nr. 3 (op. 126) 
2. 	Trio op. 48, Allegro con moto 	
3. 	Andante 	
4. 	Moderato assai 	
5. 	Sonatine op. 46, Allegretto 	
6. 	Lento 	
7. 	Allegro moderato

CD2
1. 	Concertino (op. 42) 	
2. 	Symphonie Nr. 10 (op. 98), Concerto grosso. Grave 	
3. 	Pastorale. Lento 	
4. 	Canzona. Andantino 	
5. 	Burlesque. Allegro molto 	
6. 	Inversion. L istesso tempo

Daniil Grishin (viola)
Giedre Dirvanauskaite (cello)
Daniil Trifonov (piano)
Kremerata Baltica
Gidon Kremer (violin & director)

Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer has proven a near-infallible guide to the neglected music of the former Soviet bloc. In the case of Polish-born Soviet Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, the revival was well underway even before Kremer came along, but this beautifully recorded two-disc set makes for a tasty sampler. Weinberg's career roughly paralleled that of Shostakovich, and he suffered the slings of history to an even greater degree than Shostakovich did. The influence went both ways: Shostakovich's embrace of Jewish themes was probably due to Weinberg's example. The Symphony No. 10 on disc two gives a good indication of why Weinberg's symphonies are showing up so often on orchestral programs. The tonal language, flirting with dodecaphony, is not simple, but the five compact movements, rooted in Baroque dances, are arresting, especially with a crack string section such as the one Kremer has at his disposal (check out the cello acrobatics). The work is similar tonally but of a different flavor from Shostakovich's more atonal works of the 1960s. Even more intense is the late Sonata No. 3 for solo violin, Op. 126, played by Kremer himself. The other three works all date from the late 1940s and early 1950s. These are pleasing pieces in the Soviet vein of enforced simplicity. They're probably better than Shostakovich's works of the same period, but with an album that seems to aim to be a survey of Weinberg's music, one will wonder why the full range of the composer's music wasn't exploited. But this is really the only possible complaint in this fine collection. ---James Manheim, Rovi

The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is finally beginning to get the hearing it has long deserved. Weinberg's lifetime spanned the 20th century: born 1919 in Warsaw, he died 1996 in Moscow, in semi-obscurity. Along the way, his allies and supporters had included Dmitri Shostakovich, who considered him one of the great composers of the age. This double album by violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, recorded in Neuhardenberg and Lockenhaus, makes an excellent case for that claim.

Effectively a portrait album, it opens with one of Weinberg's most remarkable creations, the extraordinary and complex third violin sonata of 1978 brilliantly performed by Gidon Kremer. The violinist ranks this work alongside Bartók's Sonata for Solo Violin as one of the masterpieces for the instrument. With friends (including star pianist Daniil Trifonov) he explores some chamber music - the Trio op 48 (composed 1950) and the Sonatina op.46 (1949) - and the commitment and skills of the Kremerata musicians are brought to bear on two strikingly-contrasting compositions for string orchestra, the graceful and lyrical Concertino op. 42 (1948) and the adventurous and gripping Symphony No 10 (1968), bringing 12-tone rows and chordal structure into unexpected juxtapositions.

Latvian-born master violinist Gidon Kremer founded Kremerata Baltica in 1997 to foster outstanding young musicians from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, the three Baltic States. Their other ECM recordings are Hymns and Prayers with works by Tickmayer, Franck and Kancheli; a pairing of the adagio of Mahler's unfinished Symphony No 10 and the 14th Symphony of Shostakovich; Schubert's G Major String Quartet orchestrated by Victor Kissine; Gubaidulina's Lyre of Orpheus; Kancheli's In l'istesso tempo; Kissine's Between Two Waves, and, in the Edition Lockenhaus box set, Messiaen's Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and Strauss's Metamorphosen. ---propermusic.com

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1. Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52 - Adagio - Andante leggiero - Adagio
2. Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52 - Allegro con fuoco - Cadenza (Lento)
3. Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52 - Andantino leggiero - Adagio
4. Concerto No. 2 for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 148 - Allegro
5. Concerto No. 2 for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 148 - Largo
6. Concerto No. 2 for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 148 - Allegretto - Andante molto ritenuto - Largo
7. Concerto [No. 1] for Flute and String Orchestra, Op. 75 - Allegro molto
8. Concerto [No. 1] for Flute and String Orchestra, Op. 75 - Largo
9. Concerto [No. 1] for Flute and String Orchestra, Op. 75 - Allegro comodo
10. Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, Op. 104 - Allegro
11. Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, Op. 104 - Andante
12. Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, Op. 104 – Allegretto

Anders Jonhäll: flute
Urban Claesson: clarinet
Claes Gunnarsson: cello

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra 
Thord Svedlund – conductor

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (sometimes spelt Vainberg; 1919-1996) is getting a good deal of attention these days, and for good reason. He studied in Warsaw and later Minsk, and became a close friend of Shostakovich; of meeting Shostakovich he reportedly said, 'It was as if I had been born anew.' His music certainly bears more than a trace of Shostakovian influence, although there is much less sarcasm and angst in his music.

This CD contains four concertos, two for flute, one for clarinet, and best of all an absolutely gorgeous cello concerto (called a Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra). All of these pieces are very good and they are given stellar performances on this disc. The cello concerto (1951-53) is unfailingly mellifluous, cleverly constructed (it is in three movements played without pause), and sounds like it must be extraordinarily grateful to play. Its silken melodies stick in the ear, the middle section has gypsy, or at least folk-like, elements, and the Adagio finale section is moving. I frankly think this concerto deserves to join the fairly small ranks of popular and often-played cello concertos. Cellist Claes Gunnarsson plays it as to the manner born.

The two flute concertos - No. 1 for flute and string orchestra (1961) and No. 2 for flute and full orchestra (1987) -- have more than a passing resemblance to Nielsen's concerto for that instrument, but don't quite have the vehement outbursts of the Nielsen. Weinberg's sly sense of humor is displayed in the Second Concerto's finale when he quotes two the repertoire's most famous flute passages, Gluck's 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits' and Bach's 'Badinerie' from the Second Orchestral Suite. Both concerti combine pastoral and rather darker elements. The Second Concerto receives its first recording here and flutist Anders Jonhäll is a fine exponent of both concerti.

Also receiving its first recording is the Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (1970). Again one is reminded a bit of Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto by some of the recurring major second trills and the inventive use of the instrument's extreme registers. But Weinberg's work is more dissonant and emphatic, not to speak of unremittingly virtuosic. In the typical fast - slow - fast configuration, the emotional center of the work is the Andante which is both warmer and less spiky than the outer movements. The Finale contains dance elements and a daunting cadenza. Clarinetist Urban Claesson is superb.

In all four concertos the fabled Gothenburg Symphony (now labeled the National Orchestra of Sweden) plays as if they had been playing these works all their lives, although surely these are new works for them. The conductor is a new name for me, Thord Svedlund. He apparently has been a violinist in the Göteborg orchestra for two decades. He certainly gets expert performances from his colleagues.

Highly recommended. ---Scott Morrison, amazon.com

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Symphony No.5 in F minor, Op.76
1. Allegro Moderato
2. Adagio Sostenuto
3. Allegro-Andantino
Trumpet Concerto in B flat major, Op.95 
4. Etudes-Allegro Molto
5. Episodes-Andante-Fanfares

Timofei Dokshitser (trumpet, 4-5)
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Kondrashin (conductor, 1-3)
Algis Zhiuraitis (conductor, 4-5)

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (more frequently seen in the Russian variant as Moise Vainberg - or ‘Vaynberg’ if you look at the 1980 New Grove) was born in Warsaw, the son of a violinist and composer working in the Polish theatre. In 1941, a fateful year, he moved to the USSR, at first to Minsk, then to Tashkent. His First Symphony resulted in an invitation to Moscow by Shostakovich. The two became close and had a relationship of mutual trust and friendship under which they shared views on draft compositions and supported each other through the most testing of times. Vainberg was in fatal peril in 1953 when his name became linked with a campaign to make a Jewish state out of the Crimea. Shostakovich's intervention saved him from the gulags or a bullet in the back of the head.

The Fifth Symphony has not previously been recorded. The work emerged in 1962 influenced by the first performance, after a long suppression, of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. It is dedicated to Kondrashin, a lifelong Vainberg champion, who conducted the premiere of the Shostakovich work and recorded it for Melodiya shortly afterwards. Alistair Wightman comments, in his notes, on the similarities between the music of Shostakovich and Vainberg. The four movement Symphony is indeed bleak, has its moments of soured triumph threaded through with disillusion. There is a beleaguered comfort about the fine tenderly plangent adagio sostenuto which is I think more powerful than anything in Shostakovich 4. It bridges across to the tense adagios of the Roy Harris symphonies of the 1930s and 1940s. Tension bursts the bonds at 9.01 when the tender theme thrusts forward with all the torque of a supercharged spiritual; impressive by anyone's reckoning. The impishly playful flute and then other solo wind instruments seem to dance in macabre delicacy in the shortish allegro. This soon takes on a distinctly Shostakovichian edginess and dazzle before restively petering out into silence from which emerges attacca a pastoral finale. This becomes increasingly impassioned in the raucous style of Markevitch and Mossolov at one point (5.54). All in all this is a deeply serious symphony which hardly ever drops its guard. ---Rob Barnett, musicweb-international.com

Although their number is relatively modest, Weinberg’s concertos still make for a viable overview of his output. Among the most substantial is the Trumpet Concerto, written during 1966–67 and premièred in Moscow on 6 January 1968 by Timofey Dokshitser and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kirill Kondrashin. In three movements, this is among the composer’s most diverse works from the period—ranging from pointillist textures invoking the modernist currents then prominent in Soviet music, to elements of the sardonic and the grotesque such as evoke that heady period prior to Socialist Realism. Not for nothing did Shostakovich consider this work a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’.

The first movement, Etudes, opens with nonchalant scales from the soloist which are seconded by the orchestra—the music duly opening out into an animated repartee between these two forces that abounds in rhythmic syncopation and quirky orchestration. A central section is initiated by a more inward response from the soloist against pizzicato strings, and while this soon builds to a hectic dance with percussion to the fore, the soloist responds even more inwardly over a backdrop of muted strings and harp. The initial activity presently continues—soloist and orchestra vying for attention as the scalic writing at the beginning is recalled and the music heads towards a sardonic while undeniably decisive close.

The second movement, Episodes, immediately denotes a greater seriousness of purpose with its intensive polyphonic writing for strings, offset by the wistful tones of a flute whose melodic line is taken up by the soloist (muted), together with upper strings and woodwind. Towards midpoint, the mood intensifies as wind and percussion introduce a martial tone that is assumed imperiously by the soloist, but this is offset by the flute over pizzicato strings in dialogue with the soloist and side-drum stealthily in attendance. The music gradually regains its earlier poise, a repeated gesture from the soloist sounding ominously before, over a quiet pedal-point, flute then piccolo and harp effect a calmly expectant close.

The third movement, Fanfares, ensues without pause—the soloist’s repeated gesture proving to have Mendelssohnian overtones, which are continued with echoes of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky among others. An elaborate cadenza unfolds, accompanied in the main by woodblock and side drum, which leads into an obliquely elegant dialogue where the soloist is partnered by a succession of solo wind, string and percussion—all the while making reference back to the handful of quotes heard at the beginning. Towards the close the soloist touches musingly upon the scales heard at the work’s very opening, before this most unlikely of finales is rounded off by a single conclusive chord from percussion. ---Richard Whitehouse, naxos.com

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