Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996)

Started by Maciek, November 13, 2008, 01:32:49 AM

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The new erato

Quote from: Brian on December 23, 2012, 06:25:46 PM
Where do you get a peek at releases that early on? I believe the 8th is being recorded by Antoni Wit with the Warsaw Philharmonic, which would fit with the "Polish" subtitle of the piece.
It's by them, and it's listed on abeillemusic as a new release for release mid-February (along with some other interesting stuff (Hasse's Didone Abbandonata, piano music by Alexander Goehr, a 3 CD Morton Gold box etc).

http://www.abeillemusique.com/result.php?page=1&label=322


Mirror Image

Quote from: vandermolen on April 16, 2012, 01:05:53 AM
Just listened to the new Naxos version of Weinberg's 6th Symphony (for orchestra with boys' choir). It is a hauntinly poignant work with an incredibly touching last movement.  It is from 1963 and is rather in the spirit of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony (I actually prefer the Weinberg work). Shostakovich apparently thought very highly of the work too and was a great friend of Weinberg's.  Maybe the performance has less intensity than the classic Kondrashin but it is still a fine and inexpensive introduction to the work.  Of the symphonies I know it ranks with No 5 as the greatest (1 and 3 are my other favourites). As the blurb says 'Scored for very large orchestra and children's choir, Symphony No. 6 is a work of huge expression, anguished and dynamic, encompassing lament, circus gallops, burlesque, and a cataclysmic and heart-rending slow movement
[asin]B007C7FE50[/asin]

Sorry I'm so late to this post, Jeffrey. :-[ Yes, this performance of Weinberg's Symphony No. 6 is very fine. I've listened to it many times (bought it on release day in the US). I like the other work a lot too (Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes). Weinberg's musical language is so close to Shostakovich's that on most occasions I opt for Shostakovich instead since I think he was the leading Soviet composer of his time. To say Weinberg was influenced by Shostakovich would be an understatement.

vandermolen

Quote from: Mirror Image on July 26, 2013, 07:34:53 PM
Sorry I'm so late to this post, Jeffrey. :-[ Yes, this performance of Weinberg's Symphony No. 6 is very fine. I've listened to it many times (bought it on release day in the US). I like the other work a lot too (Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes). Weinberg's musical language is so close to Shostakovich's that on most occasions I opt for Shostakovich instead since I think he was the leading Soviet composer of his time. To say Weinberg was influenced by Shostakovich would be an understatement.

Am pleased you liked Weinberg's 6th Symphony John. No 5 remains my favourite but I am discovering the other symphonies with much pleasure. I also like the Piano Quintet - which also shows the influence of Shostakovich but is a powerful work in its own right.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

PaulR

Quote from: vandermolen on July 27, 2013, 01:15:24 AM
Am pleased you liked Weinberg's 6th Symphony John. No 5 remains my favourite but I am discovering the other symphonies with much pleasure. I also like the Piano Quintet - which also shows the influence of Shostakovich but is a powerful work in its own right.
It's hard not to find any influence of Shostakovich in the following generation, perhaps not to the extent of Weinberg (which shouldn't be held against him nor should it make him a 'lesser' composer). 

And MI:  "I think he [Shostakovich] was the leading Soviet composer of his time."  Talk about an understatement of the century :P

Speaking of "The Idiot", is a recording of it planned?  I would love the get that and The Portrait into my library....CD library or Blue Ray/DVD library.

jlaurson

Quote from: PaulR on July 27, 2013, 07:03:33 AM
It's hard not to find any influence of Shostakovich in the following generation, perhaps not to the extent of Weinberg (which shouldn't be held against him nor should it make him a 'lesser' composer). 

And MI:  "I think he [Shostakovich] was the leading Soviet composer of his time."  Talk about an understatement of the century :P

Speaking of "The Idiot", is a recording of it planned?  I would love the get that and The Portrait into my library....CD library or Blue Ray/DVD library.

The performance of The Portrait in Bregenz was rubbish. Glad there's no recording of that.
As per recording of the Idiot... I'm trying to get something going that one of the outstanding performances next year might get recorded. Fundraising is an issue, as you can probably imagine.

P.S. there's also a lot of Weinberg in DSCH. Their relationship was not in the least a one-way street.

springrite

Quote from: jlaurson on July 27, 2013, 08:46:01 AM


P.S. there's also a lot of Weinberg in DSCH. Their relationship was not in the least a one-way street.

Thanks for making this very important point!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

PaulR

Quote from: jlaurson on July 27, 2013, 08:46:01 AM
The performance of The Portrait in Bregenz was rubbish. Glad there's no recording of that.
As per recording of the Idiot... I'm trying to get something going that one of the outstanding performances next year might get recorded. Fundraising is an issue, as you can probably imagine.

P.S. there's also a lot of Weinberg in DSCH. Their relationship was not in the least a one-way street.

I was thinking the same exact thing......as I was on the elliptical.  Not surprising, due to how much the two composers worked together.

Didn't an English Opera company (English National Opera?) do a production?  If so, was it the same as the Bregenz production?  It's a shame, because I enjoy Bregenz's production of The Passenger

jlaurson

Quote from: PaulR on July 27, 2013, 09:22:42 AM
I was thinking the same exact thing......as I was on the elliptical.  Not surprising, due to how much the two composers worked together.

Didn't an English Opera company (English National Opera?) do a production?  If so, was it the same as the Bregenz production?  It's a shame, because I enjoy Bregenz's production of The Passenger

Oh, yes... the Bregenz Passenger was amazing. I had tickets for the performance which I had to return when I realized I had too much on my plate that year in S'burg. Bummer.
But The Portrait was high=school theater, compared to it... in the small house... just crap, really, unworthy of Weinberg's music. The Idiot, however, is every bit as good or better than the Passenger, in every way. Except perhaps that the Passenger has the more editor-friendly subject...

vandermolen

Quote from: springrite on July 27, 2013, 08:50:57 AM
Thanks for making this very important point!

Yes, I agree. DSCH had a very high opinion of Weinberg's music.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Gosh, and I'm sampling the late symphonies. I think I'm staring at the rabbit-hole here . . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

The new erato

Quote from: karlhenning on September 23, 2013, 10:19:54 AM
Gosh, and I'm sampling the late symphonies. I think I'm staring at the rabbit-hole here . . . .
You should try the piano Music.  ;) Perhaps there could be a party in the hole?

jlaurson

Quote from: The new erato on September 23, 2013, 10:36:19 AM
You should try the piano Music.  ;) Perhaps there could be a party in the hole?

Yes... but not the deadly boring (well, bland, in any case) recordings on Grand Piano. The re-issues from Olympia on Divine Art are sooo much better.

The new erato

Quote from: jlaurson on September 23, 2013, 10:44:16 AM
Yes... but not the deadly boring (well, bland, in any case) recordings on Grand Piano. The re-issues from Olympia on Divine Art are sooo much better.
Of course that's the ones I have..... ;)

Brian



milk


The Weinberg piano trio here is absolutely stunning. It is very bleak stuff. But, considering he wrote it soon after he lost his closest family members to the holocaust (Treblinka), one can understand why. Anyway, I wasn't prepared for how moved I was going to be.

jlaurson

Quote from: milk on October 04, 2013, 07:11:52 PM

The Weinberg piano trio here is absolutely stunning. It is very bleak stuff. But, considering he wrote it soon after he lost his closest family members to the holocaust (Treblinka), one can understand why. Anyway, I wasn't prepared for how moved I was going to be.

Where did get that information from?
I'm keenly interested in sources that I've been unaware of --- or else (perhaps more likely, I dare say) the above is perhaps not accurate... (There's a LOT of conflicting and incomplete information out there... but from what I've known until now, it was not Treblinka (but Trawniki, which became a sub-camp of Majdanek around the time that his family died, at the latest) and Weinberg did not know by 1945, when he wrote the Piano Trio, that his family had been murdered (this was confirmed only in 1982, upon which he wrote his 6th Violin Sonata, and there you can hear it [, too]!)... although he probably could figure so much.

milk

#139
Quote from: jlaurson on October 05, 2013, 01:02:02 AM
Where did get that information from?
I'm keenly interested in sources that I've been unaware of --- or else (perhaps more likely, I dare say) the above is perhaps not accurate... (There's a LOT of conflicting and incomplete information out there... but from what I've known until now, it was not Treblinka (but Trawniki, which became a sub-camp of Majdanek around the time that his family died, at the latest) and Weinberg did not know by 1945, when he wrote the Piano Trio, that his family had been murdered (this was confirmed only in 1982, upon which he wrote his 6th Violin Sonata, and there you can hear it [, too]!)... although he probably could figure so much.
Ah yes. You're right. Thanks. I misread this. And this is the second time in the last day or so that I've written "I misread this" in this forum. Oops! Not Treblinka but Trawniki. Yes, I see: He wouldn't have known his parents' and sister's fate at that point. Perhaps he was aware of the bleak situation at the Lodz ghetto. Perhaps he had lost contact with them by '45. In any case, I'm really falling for Weinberg's music: The cello sonata, piano quintet and piano trio - all written around this same time.