'Music Behind the Iron Curtain' music examples

This is a list of audio recordings available for the majority of the music examples featured in my book, 'Music Behind the Iron Curtain'. This is intended for use while reading through the text. You can buy the book from Cambridge University Press here.

Square brackets indicate the page number for the example. I have linked to Youtube wherever possible. In some instances, there is no audio available (either because the piece is unrecorded or a recording has not been posted online, or because it is unavailable entirely - as is the case with my reconstructions of early/'lost' versions of works).

This list is intended to be flexible, and will be updated as/when links go out of availability.

Chapter 1 - Weinberg in Warsaw 

1.1 Quartet No. 1 (original version), first movement, opening, and harmonic reduction [page 33]
 [Unavailable]

1.2 Szymanowski, Quartet No. 1, (a) first movement closing bars, and (b) third movement closing bars; Weinberg, Quartet No. 1, (c) first movement closing bars, and (d) third movement closing bars [36]
Szymanowski: a) here, b) here; Weinberg original version unavailable. 

1.3 Panufnik, Piano Trio, First movement, 111 [39]
Full movement available: here (exact passage with example c. 5 minutes in). 

1.4 Panufnik, Piano Trio, third movement, ending [40]
Available here

A bonus link: the 1936 film Fredek uszczęśliwia świat, with music by the 16/17 year old composer.

Chapter Two - The War 

2.1 Weinberg, Quartet No. 2 (original version), first movement, opening, and reduction [52]
[Unavailable online]

2.2 Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet, ‘Juliet as a Young Girl’, opening [53] 
Available here

2.4 Lutosławski, Variations on a Theme of Paganini, (a) opening, and reduction
Available here

2.5 Bacewicz, Quartet No. 2, first movement, rehearsal figure 32 [68] 
Available here

2.6 Weinberg, Quartet No. 3, opening (violins and viola, bb. 1 and 2; and then cello, bars 3–10) [73]
[Unavailable online]

2.7 Weinberg, Quartet No. 3, first movement, 112 [73]

2.8 Weinberg, Quartet No. 3, first movement, 845 [76]

2.9 Weinberg, Chamber Symphony No. 2, third movement, figure 8 [76]
Available here

2.10 Weinberg Quartet No. 5, first movement, opening [82] 
Available here

2.11 Weinberg, Quartet No. 5, third movement, opening [83] 
Available here

Chapter Three - Socialist Realism and Socrealizm

3.1 Hyper-minor scale [93]
[Analytical reduction]

3.2 Weinberg, Quartet No. 6, first movement, opening [95]
Available here

3.3 Bacewicz, Quartet No. 3, final movement, graph [102]
(Schenkerian reduction) Full movement Available here

3.4 Bacewicz, Quartet No. 4, first movement [121]
Available here


Chapter Four - Avant-Garde(s)

4.1 Penderecki, Quartet No. 1, P. 3, third system [138]
Available here

4.2 Weinberg, Quartet No. 7, discarded ‘second’ movement, figure 2 [140]
[Unrecorded]

4.3 (a) Shostakovich Quartet No. 3, opening, and b) Weinberg, Quartet No. 7, second movement, opening. [141]
Shostakovich: Available here
Weinberg: Available here

4.4 Weinberg, Quartet No. 8, 1 bar before Fig 4. [153]
Available here

4.5 Weinberg, The Idiot, Act II, scene 4  [158]
Available here

4.6 Lutosławski, String Quartet, second movement, figure 14 [161]
Available here

4.7 Meyer, Quartet No. 1, opening [164]
Available here

4.8 Weinberg, Quartet No. 9, first movement, opening  [165]
Available here

4.9 Weinberg, Quartet No. 10, opening [167]
Available here

4.10 Weinberg, Quartet No. 11, first movement, opening [170]
Available here

4.11 Weinberg, Quartet No. 11, first movement, figure 2 [171]
Available here


Chapter Five - Return and Retreat

5.1 Chaykovsky, Quartet No. 5, figure 36 [184]
Available here

5.2 Bacewicz, Quartet No. 7, second movement, figure 12 [187]
Available here

5.3 Penderecki, St Luke Passion, opening [189]
Available here

5.4 Weinberg, Quartet No. 12; (a) first movement, opening (b) figure 9 [199]
a) Available here
b) Available here

5.5 Weinberg, Quartet No. 12, first movement, figure 3 [202]
Available here


Chapter Six - Late Style(s)

6.11 Knapik, String Quartet, opening [219]
[Unavailable online]

6.2 Knapik, String Quartet, bb. 219–26 [220]
[Unavailable online]

6.3 Weinberg, Quartet No. 6; (a) fourth movement, four bars before Fig 56 (b) fifth movement, 1 bar before Fig 73 [228]
a) Available here
b) Available here

6.4 Weinberg, The Passenger, opening [230]
Available here

6.5 Weinberg, Symphony No. 12, first movement, three bars after Fig 4 [231]
Available here

6.6 Weinberg, Quartet No. 13; (a) opening (b) figure 13 [231]
a) Available here
b) Available here

6.7 Weinberg, Quartet No. 15, fourth movement, opening [233]
Available here

6.8 Weinberg, Quartet No. 1; (a) original version, bb. 194–6 (b) revised version, 2 bars before Fig 15 [234]
a) [Unavailable]
b) Available here

6.9 Weinberg, Quartet No. 14, first movement, opening [234]
Available here

6.10 Meyer, Quartet No. 12, fifth movement, figure 34 [237]
Available here

6.11 Weinberg, Quartet No. 15, sixth movement, opening [239]
Available here

6.12 Weinberg, Quartet No. 15, seventh movement, opening [240]
Available here

6.13 Weinberg, Quartet No. 15, eighth movement, opening [241]
Available here

6.14 (a) Weinberg, Quartet No. 16, second movement, 7 bars before Fig 21. (b) ‘Op. 10’ (pre-opus number), Mazurka No. 2, opening. [243]
a) Available here
b) Available here

6.15 Szymański, Four Pieces for String Quartet, first movement [249]
Available here

6.16 Szymański, Five Pieces for String Quartet, first movement, bb. 23–32 [251]
[Unavailable]

6.17 Szymański, Five Pieces for String Quartet, fifth movement, bb. 19–24 [252]
[Unavailable]

6.18 Weinberg, Quartet No. 17, figure 2 [252]
Available here

6.19 (a) Weinberg, Trio, second movement, figure 18 (b) Weinberg, The Portrait, Act 3, scene 7, opening [253]
a) Available here
b) Full opera available here

6.20 Weinberg, Quartet No. 17, opening [254]
Available here

Bonus link - Alexander Raskatov's Monk's Music, dedicated to Weinberg:
Available here




D.E. 

Boris Schwarz on Weinberg

For many years, Boris Schwarz's magisterial Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia was the authoritative text on Soviet music. It was a considerable achievement of scholarly work, touching on a huge range of authors, subjects, and pieces.

Schwarz was born in St Petersburg, but his family emigrated to Berlin in his youth. Schwarz emigrated to the US in 1936. Starting from the 1950s, he made several extended trips back to Russia to conduct musicological research. The result is his mammoth book. It was greatly celebrated, including an award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' in 1973.

Perhaps the most impressive detail is how comprehensive Schwarz managed to be; he includes details on just about every Soviet composer you could think of.

For many decades, Schwarz's paragraphs on Weinberg were the sole extent of public knowledge of his life and music (including its many inaccuracies!) Thankfully, this has long since not been the case. That said, I reproduce below the page or so that Schwarz included on Weinberg. It is something of a curio to consider that for decades, this was the most known about Weinberg and his music:

Another composer who deserves wider attention abroad is Moissei Vainberg [sic]. Born in 1919 in Warsaw, he received his musical education in Poland. When his country was overrun by the Germans in 1941, Vainberg sought refuge in the Soviet Union and eventually settled in Moscow. He is one of the few Soviet composers of Jewish origin who has achieved genuine equality among his colleages: he is extremely well liked and receives many commissions and performances. In contrast to the older generation of Jewish-Russian composers who stressed their Jewishness (among them Engel, Achron, Krein, Veprik, Gnessin), the younger generation does not limit itself ethnically. Composers like Lev Knipper, Yulian Krein, Boris Kliusner, and Vainberg have acquired a Russian or international musical idiom. In Vainberg's music, there is neither avoidance of, nor stress on, Jewishness; some of his works contain elements of Jewish folklore, while others employ a musical idiom related to Shostakovich and Bartók.

After the 1948 decree, Vainberg enjoyed the doubtful privilege of being praise by Khrennikov for his 're-orientation' - enough to ruin anyone's career - when he reviewed the accomplishments of the year 1948:

'A shining proof of the fruitfulness of the realistic path is the Sinfonietta by Vainberg. As a composers, Vainberg was strongly influenced by modernist music which badly mangled his undoubted talent. Turning to the sources of Jewish folk music, Vainberg created a bright, optimistic work dedicated to the theme of the shining, free working life of the Jewish people in the land of Socialism. In this work Vainberg has shown uncommon mastery and a wealth of creative imagination'. 

Among Vainberg's best works is his Second Sinfonietta, composed in 1958 for Rudolf Barshai and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. In addition, Vainberg has written eight smyphonies, eleven string quartets, some twenty sonatas for various instruments, several concertos, and various chamber music works with piano, including an impressive piano quintet. Whether his style is strong and personal enough to win acceptance abroad is still untested since hardly any of his music has been heard in the West'.  

Boris Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia: Enlarged Edition, 1917-1981 (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983) 294-295. 

 

Weinberg at the Wigmore Hall

In the latest news relating to Weinberg's centenary year, I'm delighted to include details of the Weinberg season occurring at London's Wigmore Hall, beginning in October. The Wigmore Hall is one of the most famous venues for chamber music in the world, so it is wonderful that so much Weinberg will be performed there over the next few years. 

In what it is certainly the most ambitious overview of Weinberg's chamber music ever attempted, the Wigmore Hall have announced that the Quatuor Danel will be performing a double-cycle of Weinberg and Shostakovich over two season, finishing in 2021. The Danels are, of course, the pioneers of Weinberg's String Quartets through their CPO recordings, and also their performances and work as part of their residency at the University of Manchester. The first concert will be on Thursday 24 October, with more throughout the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons. 

Furthermore, Saturday 26 October brings an intensive day of events in the form of a Weinberg Focus Day. There will be three concerts of chamber music, featuring acclaimed violinist Linus Roth, including works for solo violin, violin and piano, piano trio, and song cycles. The day will also include a talk and launch event for my book Music behind the Iron Curtain. I will also be introducing each concert. 

Further details can be found on the Wigmore Hall's website here and here. These look set to be incredibly exciting concerts and certainly a measure of how the Weinberg revival has come. 

January 2019, Manchester Weinberg Conference

It may have been six months ago, but minds are still reeling from the amazing 'Weinberg: East and West' conference at the University of Manchester at the start of this year. Michelle Assay and David Fanning organised a fantastic four-day event, including concerts and a complete Quartet Cycle performed by the fantastic Quatuor Danel.

Egbert Baars, of the DSCH journal, attended and has uploaded an excellent gallery of photos from the conference. I've included a selection of photos below (reproduced here with permission):

From my workshop with the Quatuor Danel on the original version of Weinberg's First Quartet. 

Gidon Kremer, who paid us an extraordinary 'flying' visit, stopping by with enough time to perform and give a moving talk. 

The ensemble from one of the afternoon concerts (L-R): Marc Danel, Michelle Assay, Rosalind Dobson 

A video conference call with Victoria Bishops, Weinberg's first daughter. 

Conference delegates enjoying a meal before an evening concert. 

Truly exceptional, the Quatuor Danel: Marc Danel, Gilles Millet, Vlad Bogdanas, and Yovan Markovitch.

Performers and scholars. back row L-R: Larissa Zvereva, Vlad Bogdanas, Yovan Markovitch, and David Fanning; front row L-R: Inessa Dvuzhilnaya, Gilles Millet, Michelle Assay, Marc Danel, and Verena Mogl.

Conference sessions: Antonina Klokova and Verena Mogl.

Aleksander Laskowski.

Michelle Assay and David Fanning.

Group photo of performers, scholars, and general public.

For more of Egbert's photos, you can visit his website at: https://www.shostakovich.nl/manchester_2019/manchester_2019.html. 

Weinberg at the 2019 Proms

For me, I have always felt that a landmark in the Weinberg revival would be reached with the first performance of his music at the BBC Proms. As the largest festival of classical music in the world, they represent the 'establishment' of music in the UK. At long last, in time for his centenary year, this year's Proms features Weinberg's music for the first time ever in three concerts spread across the season. Here's a summary of the events:

1) Tuesday 6 August, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska (cond.), Sol Gabetta (cello)

Sibelius: Karelia Suite

Weinberg: Cello Concerto (in its London premiere)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6

More details here.

2) Thursday 22 August, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (cond.), Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)

Dorothy Howell: Lamia

Elgar: Cello Concerto

Knussen: The way to Castle Yonder

Weinberg: Symphony No. 3

More details here

3) Monday 2 September, Silesian Quartet, Wojciech Świtała (at Cadogan Hall)

Weinberg: Quartet No. 7

Bacewicz: Piano Quintet No. 1

More details here

In addition to these three concerts, there's also a Proms Plus talk on Weinberg before the Thursday 22 August concert, which will feature myself and Erik Levi discussing Weinberg's life and music. More details here. 

All-in-all, an exciting representation of Weinberg's music. I should add, all concerts will be broadcast live on Radio 3, and will also be available to listen back online. 

Music behind the Iron Curtain: Weinberg and his Polish Contemporaries

I am delighted to share news about the publication of my upcoming book, Music behind the Iron Curtain: Weinberg and his Polish Contemporaries, with Cambridge University Press. Here's the blurb:

Mieczysław Weinberg left his family behind and fled his native Poland in September 1939. He reached the Soviet Union, where he become one of the most celebrated composers. He counted Shostakovich among his close friends and produced a prolific output of works. Yet he remained mindful of the nation that he had left. This book examines how Weinberg’s works written in Soviet-Russia compare with those of his Polish contemporaries; how one composer split from his national tradition and how he created a style that embraced the music of a new homeland, while those composers in his native land surged ahead in a more experimental vein. The points of contact between them are enlightening for both sides. This study provides an overview of Weinberg’s music through his string quartets, analysing them alongside Polish composers. Composers featured include Bacewicz; Meyer; Lutosławski; Panufnik; Penderecki; Górecki; and a younger generation, including Szymański and Knapik.

The book will be available from mid-Autumn; for anyone able to travel to London, there will also be a launch event at the Wigmore Hall on Saturday 26 October. More details (and tickets) available here.

I'm very excited to be able to share this research with you all, and I hope to have more posts about the book over the coming weeks and months.

D.E. 

Weinberg Centennial concert in New York

On Sunday 19 May, there will be a concert in New York for Weinberg's centenary. The programme will feature long-term supporter of Weinberg's music, Yosif Feigelson, performing Weinberg's 24 Preludes for Solo Cello, as well as pianist Ilya Yakushev, and singer Daniel Singer, in a selection of Weinberg's Yiddish songs. Further details below:

MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG (1919-1996). Celebrating the centennial of one of the most prolific composer's ever who's life story reads like a novel. Please visit www.mweinberg.info to know more. Noted Latvian-born cellist, YOSIF FEIGELSON, who premiered and recorded the unique 24 Preludes opus 100in late 1990th to a wide critical acclaim, will perform them again.
Also on the program, the audience beloved, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) - one of his musical pictures has a prominent Jewish connection. The pianist is a world-class virtuoso, ILYA YAKUSHEV. In addition, well known cantor of SWFS, DANIEL SINGER, will perform several of Weinberg's Yiddish songs.
Tickets at the door $40, $30 - in advance here, $20 - seniors and students (at the door). Children under 15 admitted free.
This event is made possible by a generous gift from Elias Charitable Foundation, and by other private and business support. Visit www.improvis.org for more information.

You can buy tickets here.

Photos from Manchester Weinberg Quartet Cycle and Conference

I'm still reeling from the incredible 'Mieczysław Weinberg: East meets West' conference at my Alma mater, the University of Manchester. The conference was organised by the ever-wonderful David Fanning and Michelle Assay, who pulled everything together with their indefatigable efforts. I promise a full write-up 'report' of the proceedings, but for now, here's a selection of photos from the four days (my own, and from other delegates and audience-members).

Full programme of the Quatuor Danel concerts.

Yours truly, leading a workshop-seminar with the Quatuor Danel on my reconstruction of Weinberg's First Quartet (photo credit: Richard Pleak)

An incredible 'surprise guest' at the conference: Gidon Kremer (photo credit: Richard Pleak)

Kremer performed and then gave a talk (before flying out straight afterwards!) (photo credit: Richard Pleak)

The academic conference included a Skype Q&A session with Victoria Bishops, Weinberg's first daughter.

Roberto Carrillo-Garcia gave a phenomenal performance of Weinberg's Sonata for Double-Bass in one of the afternoon concerts (photo credit: Richard Pleak)

The conference delegates were a friendly group, seen here in a large dinner in between sessions. 

The incredible Quatuor Danel (photo credit: Richard Pleak)

A wonderful group photo with the Danels, audience members and conference delegates, who all went together on the amazing journey through Weinberg's complete quartets (photo credit: The Symphonist, twitter handle: @deeplyclassical).  

Weinberg Piano Quintet, Op. 18, programme note

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996)

Piano Quintet, Op. 18 (1944)

I – Moderato con moto

II – Andante

III  – Presto

IV – Largo

V – Allegro agitato

Weinberg wrote his Piano Quintet between August and October 1944, at the age of 24. Barely a year after settling in Moscow, following his double escape from Nazi invasion (Warsaw to Minsk in September 1939 and Minsk to Tashkent in June 1941), he already had a blossoming reputation in the musical community of the Soviet capital. His Quintet is part of a larger group of chamber pieces written at prolific speed during the war years. Despite his youth, it is a formidable work, cast in five movements, similar to Shostakovich’s celebrated Piano Quintet of 1940. But whereas Shostakovich’s work is often contemplative in character, Weinberg’s Quintet is more extrovert as a whole. It is tempting to link the work’s serious tone to the war itself - Weinberg had left his family behind when he fled his native Poland – but unlike some of his later pieces, there are no concrete clues to this effect, such as quotations or self-quotations from songs. The piano part is particularly demanding, with several extended solos. A remarkable recording exists of the composer performing the piece with the Borodin Quartet – testament to his pianistic proficiency.

            The work’s opening phrase is immediately striking, with an austere tone that sets the mood for the first movement and the whole piece. The piano is pitted against the strings, with the quartet providing punctuating gestures to the piano’s weightier thematic statements. The dotted rhythm of the second theme allows the strings to dominate, but only briefly before the opening theme returns in a thunderous restatement.

            The second movement alternates a sinuous theme in the muted strings with a hectic solo from the piano. The latter’s triplet figurations rapidly expand to the whole ensemble, before reducing to a skeletal macabre texture, with the strings playing several eerie passages with the back of the bow – col legno.

            The third movement is a Presto that opens with muted flurries in the strings, soon joined by octaves high in the piano that create a feeling of tense expectation. This mood is shattered by a series of strenuous scales and trills, before a central dance section in which elements reminiscent of Klezmer and even a brief Chopin-esque passage for solo piano combine to emphasise the ‘cabaret’ feel already latent in the previous movement.

            The long-drawn Largo rapidly darkens the mood, providing a sobering contrast to the previous manic jubilation; its character is stark, verging on melancholic. A line of implacable octaves sets the tone. The first violin delivers a mournful solo, before a strident burst of major tonality in the piano. Energy accumulates, before a heart-rending flurry of passion. The quasi-recitative theme once again moves to the solo piano, before a morendo close. A contemporary reviewer described this movement as ‘disturbingly lyrical and deeply meditative’.

            With such contrasts already encountered, the final movement has several questions to address, which is does with a succession of strongly characterised themes. It opens with strident, almost machine-like pulsations, with aggressive interjections from the piano. Syncopated rhythms abound. The second theme is unexpected: firmly in the major, it presents a folk-like dance, playful and mischievous, like an east-European take on an Irish jig. The piano contrasts with a jazz-like canon, before the first violin reintroduces the opening movement’s first theme, taking up a thread that serves to unite the whole work. This is soon combined with the folk-like melody in an unsettling blend. The juxtaposition builds to become more jarring before a fiery restatement of the first movement theme in full. Energy dissipates for the work’s close, softly concluding in a troublingly inconclusive F major.

Shostakovich and Weinberg

That Shostakovich and Weinberg were good friends is well-known. They compared their works-in-progress together, and met regularly, as well as socialising almost every day. What is less well-known, however, is the extent to which Shostakovich supported Weinberg during his most dire time of need. 

The following is from an article by Nataliya Vovsi-Mikhoels, Weinberg's first wife, on his relationship with Shostakovich, and the events of 1953: 

Although Weinberg was not a pupil of Shostakovich's, Dmitri Dmitriyevich always showed great interest in his work. From the very beginning of their acquaintance, they established a law whereby each played his compositions for the other. I remember one day Weinberg telling me of a dream he had had in which Shostakovich invited him to listen to a new work where he heard themes from many of his previous compositions. As he was telling me this story, the telephone rang; it was Shostakovich, who indeed was inviting him to come and listen to a work he had just completed. It turned out to be the Eighth Quartet, which Dmitri Dmitriyevich considered to be his musical autobiography. Weinberg returned home shaken to the very core by the music, and by his prophetic dream.  

In February 1953, Weinberg was arrested. Stalin was still alive. To be arrested in those times meant departure for ever. The families of those arrested were ostracized. I rushed between the Moscow prisons, the Lyubyanka and the Butyrka, and didn't know whom to approach.  

A few days after his arrest, a great friend of ours range me and suggested we meet. While we paced the dark and narrow Moscow lanes, he told me that Shostakovich was writing a letter to Beriya and needed me to come and help him edit it. It was sheer lunacy to go to Shostakovich in my situation! But I went and read the letter in which he, Shostakovich, vouched that Weinberg was an honest citizen and a most talented young composers, whose chief interest in life was music. I understood how dangerous it was for Shostakovich to vouch for an enemy of the people, a Jew, and furthermore, Mikhoels' son-in-law... I expressed these emotions as best as I could to Dmitri Dmitriyevich, but he, shy of being thanked, just continued to repeat, 'Don't worry, don't worry, they won't do anything to me'.  

Apart from this letter, his wife Nina Vasilyevna suggested that I should write a statement, giving her power of attorney, thereby allowing her to take our things and sell them to support my seven-year-old daughter Vitosha [Victoria], when they came to get me and my sister... In fact, as it transpired later, she had decided that they would look after Vitosha.  

But all this was not be. On 5 March Stalin died. A month later, my father was rehabilitated in the press. Soon after this Shostakovich and his wife went to the south on holiday, making me promise to send a telegram as soon as Weinberg was released.  

And shortly we were able to send them this telegram: 'Enjoy your holiday. We embrace you, Tala and Metek'. Two days later the Shostakoviches were back in Moscow. That evening we celebrated. At the table, festively decked out with candles in antique candlesticks, Nina Vasileyna read out the power of attorney that I had written. Then Dmitri Dmitriyevich got up and solemnly pronounced, 'Now I should burn it over the candles'. After the destruction of the 'document', we drank vodka and sat down to supper. I rarely saw Dmitri Dmitriyevich as clam, and even merry, as he was that evening. 

Quoted from Elizabeth Wilson (ed), Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (London: Faber and faber, 2006) 263-264. 

Shostakovich photograph from wikipedia commons.