Mieczysław Weinberg - Symphonies Nos. 14 & 16 (Gabriel Chmura)

Information

Composer: Mieczysław Weinberg

• Symphony No. 16, Op. 131
• Symphony No. 14, Op. 117

Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

Gabriel Chmura, conductor

Date: 2006

Label: Chandos

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Review

The Polish-Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg wrote 26 symphonies, 17 string quartets (emerging as a complete cycle on CPO with the Danel Quartet), seven operas, twenty-six sonatas and ten works for solo instrument and orchestra. Quite a few of the symphonies have been recorded though well less than half the total number. With this disc we rejoin the current Chandos-Weinberg symphonies-Chmura programme begun with Volume 1 - Symphony 5, Sinfonietta 1 CHAN10128 - and Volume 2 - Symphony 4, Sinfonietta 2 CHAN10237.

 

After Weinberg’s works for solo instrument and orchestra on CHSA5064, it is instructive to return to the Symphonies. Volume 3 is the first to offer two symphonies - each of about half an hour. From 1977 and 1981 they seem riven, tortured, tormented even, by conflict. The vengeful and recurrent tolling of the Sixteeneth symphony recalls the equally torrid figuration that racks Grace Williams' Ballads - wonderfully recorded on Lyrita SRCD327. A mixture of panic and ruthlessness drives the yelping fourth section.  There is melancholic remission from this cauldron of tragedy in the remorseful exhaustion and skeletally exiguous final section of the work. This symphony receives its premiere recording here.

 

The Fourteenth Symphony is dedicated to Vladimir Fedoseyev who conducted the premiere in Moscow in 1980. It uses a large orchestra including six horns and is in four sections though laid out as a single continuous entity. An emotionally blanched introduction in which solo woodwind instruments sing mournful songs is followed by a sinister sequence in which woodwind capers and jigs as in some dark masque. The glum solo lines of the adagio lead us towards some woebegone miasma. This is dispelled by emphatic fanfare-whooping horns and  trumpets which might at times sound like a dissonant Janáček. This is all played with great attention to effect by the Polish Radio orchestra.

 

The notes are by Per Skans who also provided annotation for the Svtetlanov-Myaskovsky series on Olympia and then on Regis.

 

This is a further disc to demonstrate that the music of the Iron Curtain was a much broader church than the image presented by commentators unable to see past Shostakovich.

 

— Rob Barnett

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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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Gabriel Chmura (7 May 1946 – 19 November 2020) was a Polish-Israeli conductor. He won First Prizes at the prestigious Besançon, Guido Cantelli and Herbert von Karajan conducting competitions. Chmura conducted leading orchestras worldwide, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestre National de France, Montreal Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and NHK Symphony. He also served as Music Director and Artistic Director of major institutions in Aachen, Bochum, Ottawa, Katowice and Poznań. At the Poznań Opera House, he conducted numerous acclaimed productions, including Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

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