Mieczysław Weinberg - String Quartets Vol. 4 (Quatuor Danel)

Information

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg

• String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 27
• String Quartet No. 9 in F sharp minor, Op. 80
• String Quartet No. 14, Op. 122

Quatuor Danel

    Marc Danel, violin

    Gilles Millet, violin

    Vlad Bogdanas, viola

    Guy Danel, cello

Date: 2010

Label: CPO

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Review

Following the pattern of the previous disc in their complete Weinberg cycle the Quatour Danel here feature three quartets that effectively span the composer’s career. First there’s the accessible, relatively straightforward Fifth, composed in 1945 at a time when Weinberg poured much of his creative energies into chamber music.

Crafted in five movements, each bearing generic titles such as ‘Melodia’, ‘Humoresque’, ‘Improvisation’ and ‘Serenata’, it effects a rather melancholic and contemplative character that is only briefly disturbed by its fast and furiously intense Scherzo.

Similarly elegiac elements are very much to the fore in the slow movement of the Ninth, but in the first movement Weinberg eschews lyricism and projects an almost relentless density of sound. This marks a sharp contrast with the ensuing ghostly waltz which casts a disturbing shadow over the rest of the work. Indeed the brief F sharp major chord at the end of the Finale sounds strangely inconclusive.

The 14th Quartet from 1978, divided into five unbroken sections with specific metronome marks rather than tempo directions, uses a less complex harmonic idiom than the 15th (featured in Vol. 3, reviewed last March), but is dominated by long impassioned monologues for solo instruments and by a seeming inability to achieve resolution between passages of violence and those of a more consoling nature.

None of these works strike me as being quite as compelling or memorable as the Sixth featured in Vol. 3, but committed playing makes this release worthwhile.

— Erik Levi

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Mieczysław Weinberg (8 December 1919 – 26 February 1996) was a Polish-born Soviet and Russian composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw to a family connected with Yiddish theatre, he fled Poland in 1939 following the German invasion and settled in the Soviet Union, where he gained the support of Dmitri Shostakovich. Weinberg became a prolific and respected composer, particularly during the 1960s, when his concert and film music achieved considerable recognition. His later years were marked by declining health and reduced official support. International appreciation of his music grew significantly in the 1990s.

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Quatuor Danel is a French/Belgian string quartet established in June 1991. The ensemble has worked with the Amadeus Quartet, the Borodin Quartet, as well as members of the Beethoven Quartet and the LaSalle Quartet. Known for classical, early modern and contemporary repertoire, they tour internationally and have an extensive discography. They have both recorded and performed the first complete cycle of string quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg, as well as a complete cycle of the quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich. Since 2005, the Danel has been "Quartet in Residence" at the University of Manchester.

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