Leó Weiner - Senerade; Divertimentos (Neeme Järvi)

Information

Composer: Leó Weiner

• (01) Serenade in F minor, Op. 3
• (05) Divertimento No. 1 in D major, Op. 20
• (10) Divertimento No. 2 in A minor, Op. 24
• (14) Divertimento No. 3 in A major, Op. 25
• (19) Divertimento No. 4 in G major, Op. 38
• (24) Divertimento No. 5, Op. 39

Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
Neeme Järvi, conductor

Date: 2017
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010959

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Review

I demand to know what Neeme Järvi has for breakfast! At 80 years old, with nearly 500 recordings under his belt, he is still voracious in his appetite for under-explored repertoire. Here, Järvi turns his attention to Leó Weiner, who was just four years younger than Béla Bartók – they shared the same composition teacher at the Liszt Academy – but whose music very much looked back towards the 19th century. If Brahms’s Hungarian Dances and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies are your cup of tea – they were among my earliest loves when discovering classical music as a teenager – then Weiner’s Five Divertimentos should prove a delight.

The first two divertimentos are scored for strings alone but Weiner’s best music comes in the three later ones (composed between 1949 and 1951), scored for full orchestra. Rather than Bartók and Kodály’s method of collecting folk songs, Weiner used manuscripts of old Hungarian dances as his sources; and if I describe the results as Bartók-lite, that’s not meant in a derogatory way. There is plenty of charm in Weiner’s treatment of this often infectious music, often delicately scored. Solo woodwinds of the excellent Estonian National Symphony Orchestra have plenty of opportunities to shine: oboe and clarinet skirling as bagpipes; a bassoon offering the punchline to the Shepherd’s Joke; flute leading a gentle csárdás; or oily clarinet weaving a seductive cadenza in the ‘Verbunk from Pereg’ in the Fifth Divertimento. There’s plenty of swagger to numbers such as the ‘Song of Ignác Gábor’ in the Fourth Divertimento, with punch to Chandos’s weighty sound. The ENSO under Järvi offer slightly more verve and character to their performances than the North Hungarian Symphony Orchestra on a 2006 Hungaraton recording.

The Serenade (from 1906) is another charmer, where Järvi keeps the dance rhythms buoyant. Undemanding material but well worth seeking out for an entertaining listen.

-- Mark Pullinger, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Oct/Weiner_divertimentos_CHAN10959.htm
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Le%C3%B3-Weiner-Divertimentos-Serenade-Orchestra/dp/B07579Y4ZV

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Leó Weiner (16 April 1885 – 13 September 1960), was one of the leading Hungarian music educators. He studied at the Academy of Music in Budapest with János (Hans) Koessler, winning numerous prizes there. He was appointed music theory teacher at the Budapest Academy of Music in 1908, professor of composition in 1912 and professor of chamber music in 1920. Among his many students were Fritz Reiner, Georg Solti, Peter Erős, Béla Síki, János Starker and György Sebők. As a composer, Weiner's compositions were strongly influenced by the early Romantics from Beethoven through Mendelssohn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Weiner

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Neeme Järvi (born June 7, 1937 in Tallinn) is an Estonian conductor. He studied at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky and Nikolai Rabinovich, among others. Järvi was Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony (1982-2004), Royal Scottish National Orchestra (1984-1988), Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1990-2005) and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (2012-2015), among others. He made over 400 recordings for labels such as BIS, Chandos and Deutsche Grammophon and best known for his interpretations of Romantic and 20th century classical music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neeme_J%C3%A4rvi

http://www.neemejarvi.ee/

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