Every five years the Soviet Union celebrated the anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution with large-scale public events, to which the country’s leading artists were expected to contribute. Mieczyslaw Weinberg, like his friend Shostakovich, enjoyed mixed fortunes with his efforts. The symphonic poem Dawn (Zarya), Op. 60, dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the Revolution, seems to have remained unperformed during his lifetime, despite its ideologically irreproachable content. Its première was finally given in the BBC studios in Manchester, on 15 May 2019, by the BBC Philharmonic under John Storgards.

The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colourfully nostalgic feel, Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto became popular in the West, while Weinberg’s emotive Trumpet Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Shostakovich as a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’. Shostakovich’s own playful Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 is recorded here with Timofei Dokschizer’s extended trumpet part, bringing it closer to the Baroque ‘double concerto’ model that the composer may initially have intended.

The music of Mieczys?aw Weinberg continues to be issued, and continues to impress. Like his British counterpart, York Bowen, Weinberg was a composer trapped in time and place, and it is good that their very different musics are now coming to the fore with such regularity. One of the wonderful things about this disc, aside from the committed, intense playing of the instrumentalists, is the sound: crisp and clear, with only a very little reverb, which brings the sound of the instruments into sharp focus and makes the listener pay attention to the music.

Here are four works for trumpet and orchestra all from the pre-Perestroika USSR.
The Arutyunian is a singularly attractive work dating from 1950. It is brilliant (as you would expect), languorously suggestive of warm summer nights in the Caucasus and, in places, a hair's breadth from Gershwin's blues. Those of you who may have heard the violin concerto this is a much more attractive work given a strapping performance and vivid recording. The big theme struts like a toreador.

This is a unique collection of audio documents that captured the genius Soviet composers playing for posterity. The major bonus of the set is a 'home-made' recording of the violin sonata performed by the composer and David Oistrakh. The four-hand piano transcription of the Tenth Symphony recorded together with the outstanding composer Mieczysaw Weinberg will also spark an evident interest. Shostakovich recorded concertos, chamber ensembles and vocal cycles with some of the greatest twentieth-century musicians such as Daniil Shafran, Nina Dorliak, Zara Dolukhanova, Alexei Maslennikov, Maxim Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet.

Russian Roots is the Trio Gaspard's debut recording for Chandos records, for which they are joined by soprano Katharina Konradi for a diverse and rewarding program that explores the Russian influence across almost 200 years of music. A selection of Russian folksongs set by Beethoven, Shostakovich's first Piano Trio, his Seven Romances on poems by Blok and Weinberg's Jewish Songs form the backbone of the recital. These are interspersed with Vocalises (wordless songs) by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Gubaidulina and Auerbach.

The three sonatas of Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (written in 1964, 1967, and 1979) are among the most richly creative and technically challenging 20th century works for solo violin, and their radical expressivity draws the listener in. Gidon Kremer, a key figure in the revival of interest in Weinberg's music, ranks these pieces with the Bart¢k sonata for their challenges and rewards. This edition of the Weinberg violin sonatas is issued on the occasion of Kremer's 75th birthday.

The 24 Preludes for Cello solo by Mieczysław Weinberg have a particular history. He composed them in the late sixties for Mstislav Rostropovich, who never played them. Their musical language is aphoristic, often brutal, provocative and marked by an inner conflict. The Preludes reveal many different and very strong gestures. Their performance may have been problematic in Soviet times.

After Weinberg and his wife were able to move to Moscow in 1943 with the help of Shostakovich, he wrote the Piano Trio op.24 in 1945. The present recording is based on a copy of the manuscript from 1945, which contains all of the original ideas about the dynamics, phrasings and peculiarities of the composition. Until shortly before his death in 1996, Weinberg’s works were regularly performed with great enthusiasm by Russian artists and now, they slowly but increasingly are reaching the international concert stage. His Piano Trio, like his other numerous works, shows his immense mastery of all compositional forms, genres and styles - always shaped by events in his own fateful life.

For her third disc, the young Korean violinist Sueye Park has explored the repertoire for solo violin, and chosen works spanning exactly 100 hundred years – from Max Reger’s Prelude and Fugue from 1909 to Penderecki’s Capriccio, composed in 2008. Framing the 20th century, the programme starts as a relay race of famous violinist-composers; Reger dedicating his piece to Kreisler, who dedicated his Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice to Ysaÿe, who wrote his Sonata No. 6 for the Spanish virtuoso Manuel Quiroga. In this series of names, that of Richard Strauss may come as a surprise, but his little-known Daphne-Etüde from 1945 is also dedicated to a violinist – his young grandson.

The seventeen string quartets of Weinberg span nearly half a century, from his student days in Warsaw to the end of his career in Moscow, and show his development as a composer more clearly than his work in any other genre. The Second Quartet, composed in 1939 – 40 whilst studying in Minsk, was dedicated to his mother and sister, who he would later learn had not survived the German invasion of Poland. Quartet No. 5, of 1945, was the first in which he added titles to each movement, and reflects the influence of Shostakovich over the young composer. The final quartet in this programme – No. 8 – was written in 1959 and dedicated to the Borodin Quartet. For many years the best-known of Weinberg’s quartets in the west, this single-movement work is divided into three sections with a coda.

Following the success of the Weinberg Symphonies 2 & 21 with conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Deutsche Grammophon now features chamber music by Mieczysław Weinberg under the direction of Gidon Kremer.
Included among others are his “Three Pieces for Violin and Piano”, which Weinberg completed in the winter of 1934/35 when he was only 15 years old and had not yet received any compositional training. What connects Weinberg’s works is not only their compositional perfection, but above all their constant commitment to beauty. It is a confession that in Weinberg’s music is above all pain and suffering.

With 22 symphonies, 17 string quartets, 9 concertos, and 7 operas, the composer Mieczysław Weinberg left behind an extensive oeuvre. Musically, one can hear the composer’s close friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich, although Weinberg’s music is more lyrical and romantic in nature. Nevertheless, the composer was long forgotten and his music has only been rediscovered in the last ten years. Gidon Kremer has dedicated himself to the rediscovery and cultivation of Weinberg’s music.

Weinberg always acknowledged Shostakovich as his source of inspiration. The three movements of his Violin Sonata No. 1 cover the path from C minor to C major, a popular route in Soviet academic tradition and one also taken by Shostakovich with a colossal effect in his Symphony No. 8 during the course of the same year. Weinberg’s Violin Sonatas 2 and 3 continue to reveal his creative ambitions.

Trio Khnopff writes of this new release: Weinbergs Trio was one of the first big pieces we played together, and it has remained a unanimous favorite. The huge emotional spectrum, the quality and originality of the writing, the instrumental challenge, the composer himself (a young man facing the greatest personal and societal challenges) this all comes together in his Trio to create a work that resonates deeply with us and that has been something of a constant companion. The idea of dedicating our first album to Weinberg, and more precisely to the pivotal time around 1945, felt like a natural one.