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
National
Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Katowice/Gabriel Chmura 
