Mieczysław Weinberg - String Quartets Vol. 1 (Quatuor Danel)

Information

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg

• (01) String Quartet No. 4 in E flat major, Op. 20
• (05) String Quartet No. 16 in A flat minor, Op. 130

Quatuor Danel
Marc Danel, violin
Gilles Millet, violin
Vlad Bogdanas, viola
Guy Danel, cello

Date: 2007
Label: cpo

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Review

The first volume in Quatuor Danel’s series of Miecysław Weinberg’s complete string quartets gets off to a particularly auspicious start with two finely contrasted works, neither of which has previously been available on CD. Although the underlying anxiety that characterises the Fourth Quartet of 1945 may suggest a similarly war-scarred landscape to that of Shostakovich’s Third, there is considerable evidence of Weinberg’s individuality in the narrative plan of the work, not least in the emotionally equivocal conclusion to the Finale. Dating from 1981, the 16th is dedicated to the memory of his sister Ester who perished during the German occupation of Warsaw. It’s cast in a more abrasive musical language, hinting at Jewish cantilation in the outer movements. Having previously recorded a highly praised Shostakovich cycle, it’s hardly surprising that the Quatuor Danel demonstrate such an instinctive understanding of Weinberg’s idiom, not to mention an impressive capacity to extract the maximum degree of tonal and dynamic variety from the music. With the added advantage of warmly balanced recording and authoritative booklet notes from David Fanning, this release warrants a strong recommendation.

-- BBC Music Magazine

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/weinberg-string-quartets-vol-1

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/c/cpo77313a.php

https://www.allmusic.com/album/mieczyslaw-weinberg-string-quartets-vol-1-mw0001422059

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Mieczysław Weinberg (8 December 1919 in Warsaw – 26 February 1996 in Moscow) was a Soviet composer of Polish-Jewish origin. From 1939 he lived in the Soviet Union and Russia and lost most of his family in the Holocaust. He left a large body of work that included twenty-two symphonies and seventeen string quartets. Weinberg's works frequently have a strong programmatic element. Throughout his life, he continually referred back to his formative years in Warsaw and to the war. Although he never formally studied with Shostakovich, the older composer had an obvious influence on Weinberg's music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Weinberg

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Quatuor Danel is a French string quartet which was founded in June 1991. The quartet trained under the guidance of the Amadeus Quartet, the Borodin Quartet, Feodor Druzhinin of the Beethoven Quartet, and also with Pierre Penassou and Walter Levin of the LaSalle Quartet. The Danel Quartet's repertoire includes classical as well as contemporary music. They are specialized in the Russian repertoire; they have recorded the quartets by Shostakovich and Weinberg (world premiere). Since 2005, the Danel Quartet is "quartet in residence" at the University of Manchester, and since 2016, at Tivoli Vredenburg Utrecht.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatuor_Danel
http://www.quatuordanel.eu/

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