Katowice photos

Just got back from my first visit for the 'Parallel Worlds' project, in Katowice, southwestern Poland. In a speedy three-day visit, I managed to visit library collections, attend a concert, have several meetings, as well as fit in some sight-seeing. Here's some photos from my trip:

This impressive red-bricked building is the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, the school of music in Katowice. The imposing gothic front building was originally built for the local parliament, but is now used for music practice and lectures. Behind that, you can just about see the large box-like modern extension, which houses a concert hall, library, and electronic music studios. Notable alumni of the institution include Górecki, Krystian Zimmerman, Eugeniusz Knapik, Aleksander Lasoń, and the Silesian String Quartet.

This is the front of the Silesian Library, the largest library in the region (and one of the newest, opened in 1998). There is a huge music collection here, with an enormous amount of printed materials - I went to consult several quartet scores, as well as to track down several rarer English-language publications.

In the block opposite the Academy of music, there is a cosy 'Museum of Historic Katowice'. Contained across two floors of a large townhouse building, the second floor recreates a middle-class flat in the fin de siècle era. Lighting was tough for photos, but there were several pianos included in the museum (including a square piano from 1840).

Located further north than the Academy is a small residential area, with the Plac Grunwaldzki park in the middle. This features a 'Gallery of Artists', several rather austere-looking monuments to famous artists associated with Katowice. Henryk Górecki is included here, though this likeness depicts a rather serious expression, which doesn't seem to fit with most of the description and testimony of Górecki as a person. Still, it was nice to see a monument to a musical figure.

NOSPR - home of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. This impressive new building was opened in 2014, and designed by the same architects who built the modern addition to the Academy building (see above). I attended the Chamber Hall for a concert of Russian music given by the Silesian Quartet. The Silesian Quartet are currently in the process of recording a Weinberg cycle, with a new instalment to be released very soon.


I'm currently working through a huge number of Polish quartets, with a mind to featuring as many of them as possible in the new book. Watch this space for updates on future research trips.

Next Project - 'Parallel Worlds'

Dear all,

While my activity on this blog has slowed considerably, I can promise that my research activity has not ceased. That is why I am writing this to announce research and work on my next project, a monograph study on Weinberg and his Polish contemporaries, titled 'Parallel Worlds'.

This book will examine how Weinberg left Poland behind and delved into the mid-century Soviet style of composition, while also retaining influences and contacts in post-war Poland. I will continue my analytic focus on String Quartets, though taking in a wider focus of composition.

Research and writing are in early days yet, but I have made a start on initial progress, with my first research visit in Katowice in a few weeks. I will post updates on this page, including a 'diary' of sorts of my research visits.

As a preview, here's the first abstract for the book:

Mieczysław Weinberg fled his native Warsaw in September 1939, leaving behind a burgeoning career as a composer and pianist. He eventually reached the Soviet Union, where he made a name for himself, eventually becoming one of the USSR’s most celebrated composers, with a prolific output including twenty-two symphonies and seventeen string quartets. He worked alongside Shostakovich, and his works were performed by Rostropovich, Rozhdestvensky, Oistrakh, and the Borodin Quartet. Throughout his career, however, he was mindful of the nation that he had left behind, with constant references to Poland in his works. He only revisited Poland once in his adult life, for the 1966 Warsaw Autumn festival. Despite this apparent lack of contact, he frequently wrote works to Polish texts and with Polish themes. He also maintained correspondence with several Polish composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki and Krzysztof Meyer.

            As the Weinberg revival has thrown his works into an international spotlight, this book takes the occasion of his centenary to examine how his works written in Russia compare with his Polish colleagues; how one composer split off from his national tradition and 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. More often than not, 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 a host of Polish composers (many of them featured for the first time in an English-language publication). Through these comparisons, Weinberg’s distinct style drawn from parallel worlds is thrown into a new light. 

There is a tight schedule for publication in 2019, Weinberg's centenary year. I'll keep you posted.

All best,

D.E.

November update

Hello folks - apologies for any lack of updates on this page, my thesis work has become extremely busy (see below). Here's some Weinberg-related news for the last few weeks.

Upcoming releases

Toccata Classics - Mieczysław Weinberg, Orchestral Music, Volume Two (Dmitry Vasilyev, Siberian Symphony Orchestra). Available from 4 December.

I'm tremendously looking forward to this release - featuring two premiere recordings, with Weinberg's last symphony, and an earlier symphonic work (recorded here in its premiere performance). The 22nd Symphony itself is fascinating - finished in the final few months of Weinberg's life, when he was bed-ridden with illness. It is dedicated to his wife, Olga Rakhalskaya, who approached the composer Kirill Umansky to orchestrate the work (Weinberg only managed to complete a piano short score, with a few instructions about orchestration). The Six Ballet Scenes paired on this disc is a fascinating work, containing some of the only surviving versions of several whole works that are now considered lost. Considering the success of the previous Toccata release of orchestral works, this CD is keenly anticipated.

Performances
The Detroit premiere of The Passenger has met with rave reviews - for a taste, see this interview with the conductor:

Conductor Steven Mercurio has tackled plenty of tough projects in his career, but Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s opera “The Passenger” posed a uniquely emotional challenge.

An opera about the Holocaust can do that.

Mercurio found that he couldn’t spend more than three hours at a time learning the score.

“Concentrating on life at Auschwitz was very fatiguing,” he says. “It was so disturbing that it weighed heavily on me, so I never worked on it at night because it would keep me up.”

While preparing it, Mercurio also was working on Verdi’s fire-and-brimstone laced “Requiem.”

“It was the only time I considered the ‘Requiem’ light,” Mercurio says. “It was like a sorbet after a heavy meal.”

Read the rest here.

Video links

The above video contains a concert and an excellent talk by Yuval Waldman, on Shostakovich and Weinberg's friendship. The event was organised by the YIVO foundation.

My own work
I am pleased to announce that my latest publication has been released - an article entitled 'Mieczysław Weinberg: Lines that have escaped destruction'.

The article is part of a volume released by the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, following an event in November 2013 titled 'Music in Concentration Camps'. The full title is:

Colloque 'Musique et camps de concentration', Amaury du Closel (ed.) (Strasbourg: Conseil de l'Europe, 2015). 

It is initially released on a PDF-CD, in a handsome release: 

As soon as I receive further information about how to acquire a copy, I'll be sure to post them on this page. 

Other than that, my thesis goes well. One more chapter left to tackle - then it'll be on a home-stretch of editing and revising, heading towards the final submission! In an effort to promote more scholarly work on Weinberg, I've uploaded a select bibliography of sources on his life and music - see here. It is my hope that scholars and researchers can share vital texts, and so start a dialogue.