Mieczysław Weinberg - Symphony No. 6; Easy Pieces for Piano (Laurent Wagner; Elisaveta Blumina)

Information

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg

• (01) Symphony No. 6, Op. 79
• (06) 21 Easy Pieces, Op. 34

Konzertchor Rutheneum

Philharmonisches Orchestra Altenburg Gera

Laurent Wagner, conductor

Elisaveta Blumina, piano

Date: 2020

Label: Klanglogo

http://www.klanglogo.de/

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Review

“…..the issue of war is something which has been imposed on me by my own fate and the tragic fate of my family. I consider it my moral duty to write about war and about the appalling things which have befallen people in our century." So wrote Miecysław Weinberg, and it is hard to imagine a work that better bears out that statement than the 6th Symphony.

Its five movements consist of two purely orchestral (the first and third), and three with a unison boys choir. The finale refers back to the opening, so there is a feeling of three central movements plus a prelude and a postlude.

Much – probably too much - is made of Weinberg’s close association with Shostakovich. Yes, they were friends, and yes, Weinberg owed the older composer a great debt for supporting him when, as a ‘foreigner’ arriving in Soviet Russia, he was terribly vulnerable, and found it so hard to get his works performed. But, though it is easy to spot the influence of Shostakovich in certain aspects and details, Weinberg has his own strong identity as a creative artist.

The first movement of the symphony unfolds in a leisurely way, and we encounter musical ideas that create a bleak landscape; a simple motif for solo horn, a wandering violin line, developed as a free fugato. Slowly the tension rises, eventually dissipating in a solo flute cadenza.

The second movement sets a poignant poem by Lew Kwitko, ‘The Little Violin’. Kwitko wrote this in Yiddish, and a problem now arises; the booklet gives us German and English, but no originals, which makes it very difficult, nay virtually impossible, to follow the word setting in detail. But the boys of the Rutheneum Konzertchor are quite wonderful. Yes, it’s all unison singing, nothing complex. Yet they phrase and articulate the lovely musical lines so perfectly that the delicate combination of pathos and childish humour is caught perfectly.

The third movement, Allegro molto, is a scherzo that begins like a wild folk dance, but gradually disintegrates into a violently drunken fury.

A screaming trill then leads us, by way of lurid brass and percussion, into the profound core of the work – the Largo setting of Schmuel Halkin’s devastating poem ‘A trench is dug in red clay’. The simplicity of the boys’ melodic lines in the context of the desperate groping of the instrumental parts is emotionally overwhelming, and reminds us that this music, commemorating the Babi Yar massacre of 1941, was premiered in the wake of Shostakovich’s thirteenth symphony, which is entirely concerned with the same tragedy.

Some commentators have been critical of the final movement, Andantino, feeling it is on a lower level than the rest of the work. I disagree; yes, the emotional temperature is lowered after the traumas of the previous two movements. Yet the references back to the first movement give the work a sense of historical perspective, a sense of terrible pain which, though still present, has to be lived with, and from which lessons have been learned.

The Sixth is a great symphony, and the more so for being unlike any other symphony I can think of. Laurent Wagner and his forces, especially the boys of the Konzertchor Rutheneum, have projected all the aspects of the work superbly, even if there are some passing deficiencies in the orchestral playing (intonation in the upper woodwind is occasionally sour).

The Easy Pieces for piano which follow make an inspired ‘filler’ to the disc. They are played with brilliant characterisation by Elisaveta Blumina, and are a perfect demonstration of how a composer as gifted as Weinberg, who can create large symphonic canvasses, can yet think on a tiny musical scale – only five of these twenty-six delightful miniatures last more than one minute!

-- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

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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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Laurent Wagner (born 1960 in Lyon ) is a French conductor. He studied piano, bassoon, composition and chamber music at the Conservatoire régional de Lyon, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Wagner was Generalmusikdirektor at the Saarländische Staatstheater Saarbrücken (1994-98), chief conductor of the St. Gallen Theater, Switzerland (1998-2003), and Principal Conductor of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Ireland (2003-06). From 2013 to 2020 Laurent Wagner was Generalmusikdirektor at the Altenburg/Gera Theater.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Wagner

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Elisaveta Blumina began her studies in her native St Petersburg at the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatoire. She continued her studies at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg and later at the Conservatoire in Berne, with teachers including Andras Schiff, Evgeni Koroliov, Radu Lupu and Bruno Canino. Blumina is recognised as one of the most important interpreters of modern Russian repertoire. Her Mieczysław Weinberg recordings have won wide acclaim. Her career has taken her to venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Laeisz-Halle in Hamburg and Carnegie Hall in New York.
https://www.naxos.com/person/Elisaveta_Blumina/79501.htm
http://www.blumina.com/

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