MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Mieczyslaw WEINBERG (1919-1996)
Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52 (1951-53) [18:51]
Concerto No. 2 for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 148 (1987) [19:31]
Concerto (No. 1) for Flute and String Orchestra, Op. 75 (1961) [14:43]
Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra, Op. 104 (1970) [25:49]
Claes Gunnarsson (cello); Anders Jonhall (flute); Urban Claesson (clarinet)
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Thord Svedlund
rec. Concert Hall, Gothenburg, Sweden, 13-15 June (Fantasia, Flute Concertos), 19-20 December (Clarinet Concerto) 2005. DDD
CHANDOS CHSA5064 [79:25]
Experience Classicsonline

The Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg wrote 26 symphonies, 17 string quartets, seven operas, twenty-six sonatas and ten works for solo instrument and orchestra. Taking various labels together - and in recent years especially Chandos - we now have quite a few of the symphonies on disc though well less than half the total number. Here is a selection from his concertante works.
 
The three movement Fantasia for Cello and Orchestra took two years in the writing. The first movement has the soloist musing in unpained melancholia amid some utopian pastoral idyll. The second movement dances and chuffs happily with some sarcasm lightly added by the brass. The finale returns to the warm sunshine of Palladian fields for a fleetingly short epilogue recalling the mood of the first movement. It seems never to have been performed in orchestral format although Daniil Shafran premiered it in a version with piano in 1953.
 
The Second Flute Concerto is with full orchestra and is dedicated to Alexander Korneyev. The torture of the symphonies is completely absent with the classical peace of the Fantasia also evident here. And yet there is also present a cool breeze and sometimes a chill. Weinberg’s propensity for innocent song I associate with the Nielsen Flute Concerto. As with the Fantasia the music is completely tonal-melodic. The piece ends in suave and sunny contentment.
 
The First Flute Concerto is for flute and string orchestra. It dates from the same years as the Violin Concerto and the revisions to the symphonies 3 and 4. It is also dedicated to Korneyev. The clouds descend oppressively for the hesitant central movement where the soloist’s line seems to proceed under a louring firmament that threatens destruction at any moment. The voice of Klezmer can be heard fleetingly in the finale as can, once again, the Nielsen Flute Concerto. The final abrupt ending is shriekingly brilliant.
 
The Clarinet Concerto is again in three movements. Here the mood is more circumscribed than that of the Fantasia. Not exactly ascetic, the writing is not exuberant. Although athletic material is there the general character is similar yet again to the Nielsen of the Flute Concerto rather than the strained and remote distances of the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto. The finale has the gamin and easy-going charm of Malcolm Arnold but with added pepper from Shostakovich.
 
The finely supportive notes are by David Fanning who is writing the study of the life of Weinberg.
 
The present disc joins the current Chandos-Weinberg-Chmura line-up of:-
Vol. 1: Symphony 5, Sinfonietta 1 CHAN 10128
Vol. 2: Symphony 4, Sinfonietta 2 CHAN 10237
Vol. 3: Symphonies 14, 16 CHAN 10334
Add to this list the Melodiya disc of Symphonies 4 and 6.
 
The present Chandos issue is another disc to show that the music of Russia is a much broader church than the image presented by Shostakovich and Prokofiev. These works could in the broadest sense be said to belong on the same shelf and sector as the Malcolm Arnold concertos. They are concise, full of song and atmosphere yet shot through with chilly shafts of Northern light.
 
Rob Barnett
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.