Weinberg depicted in Shostakovich biopic

I recently read about a Russian-language film, entitled 'Скрипка Ротшильда' - 'Rothschild's Violin'. Released in 1996, the Edgardo Cozarinsky film is based around Shostakovich's completion of Fleischman's opera 'Rothschild's Violin'. Since the opera itself last only 40 minutes, the filmmaker pads the rest of the film with biography of Shostakovich and Fleischman, how Fleischman was a Jewish pupil of Shostakovich's, who died in combat in WWII. Shostakovich completed the opera, which was subsequently disapproved of by official authorities. 

In this clip, from the epilogue at the end of the film, the year is 1948. Shostakovich has received his warning from the authorities, who are now following him around Moscow. He meets Weinberg, and they join a food queue in order to discuss their latest affairs without the government agents listening in.

Rare Weinberg photos

Here are a few photographs of Weinberg, all of them found from various sources online. I have reproduced any information included with the photos - but many of them are a mystery. I welcome any input from readers.

Review: Sinfoniettas and Seventh Symphony, Svetlanov & Barshai

The Melodiya label is legendary in Russian circles. This is hardly surprising. From their founding in 1964, up until the fall of the Soviet Union, they held the monopoly on recordings in Russia. They still have a formidable back catalogue, in addition to a huge number of archive recordings slowly being released. (See my post on the Melodiya online store here). This gem of a CD is one such archive recording, released in this package for the first time. 

In addition to it being a handsome CD design, the quality of the recordings is good, considering that all three works were recorded in the 1960s. For the most part, this disc is useful to the Weinberg-collector as an easily-sourced taste of Orchestral recordings from the Soviet era. There are several other features that mark it as distinct, but the majority of it is passable, compared to several other modern recordings. 

The Music

The disc opens with Weinberg's two Sinfoniettas, Op. 41, and Op. 74. The first was a great critical success for Weinberg, one of his first pieces to attract wider praise. (In the 1948 discussions of the Soviet Composer's Union, this piece was singled out for praise as 'an example of reorietation' - Weinberg's use of Jewish themes was held aloft as an excellent response to previous criticism of  flirtations with Modernism in his music). Try the fourth movement, 'Giocoso Vivace' as a taster, with its splendid Jewish mode dance-like opening. 

  The Second Sinfonietta couldn't be more different, with a noticeably more sombre tone. In many ways, it can be regarded as an actual symphony, though with scoring for chamber orchestra. The differences between the two Sinfoniettas demonstrate the creeping stylistic shifts present during Weinberg's music over this time.

  The disc concludes with Weinberg's Seventh Symphony, a popular choice, given the numerous recordings released in recent years. The work is notable for featuring a prominent Harpsichord solo part, bordering on the demands of a concerto. Such an instrumentation may suggest several trends of neo-classical composition, but there is little to be found here. The Symphony still retains Weinberg's distinctive symphonic voice, but with more than a few hints of concerto textures (with oblique references to 'Concerto Grosso' form in the first movement). 

The Recording

As mentioned above, the quality of the recording is generally excellent. If other Soviet recordings of the same era are anything to go by, this disc has received more than a little post-production to touch it up, but it is all the stronger for doing so. Modern Western audiences can enjoy the distinctive sound of Soviet-era orchestras. 

This last point marks out this disc as noteworthy to the Weinberg collector: the Sinfonietta No. 2 and Seventh Symphony are here performed by the forces that premiered them - the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Rudolf Barshai. The Harpsichord soloist in the Seventh Symphony is not named in the liner notes - at the premiere performance in 1964, Andrei Volkonsky took the role. Volkonsky would go on to become notorious as a disruptive force of experimental composition, in addition to his work on historically-informed performances in the USSR. 

Melodiya page, with more info link

Amazon.co.uk link 

iTunes link

P.S. - Curiously, the CD bears the marking '16+', with no clarification (the same warning is printed on the disc itself). The works featured are entirely instrumental, and the liner notes don't refer to any risqué material, either social or political. As such, the age-restricted guidance is puzzling. If any readers could shed any further light on the matter, I would be most grateful.

PSS. *Edit* such age warnings are apparently arbitrarily designated by certain record labels in Russia, with no guiding policy. So, long story short, the age-rating is not there because of some certain guidelines. Thanks to the commentator who helped with this matter.

'The Passenger' - Reviews round-up

The Lincoln Center production of The Passenger in New York has now been and gone. The production courted controversy before opening night - see my article here.

The reviews that have been posted online are a mixed bunch, many finding the work so-so, but the production excellent. This post presents a selection, with summaries and links for further reading.

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Elizabeth Frayer & Shawn E Milnes, 'Schleppy Nabuccos' Blog, online link

Director David Pountney’s staging was terrific...Weinberg’s music is evocative... I greatly enjoyed the varied composition in The Passenger. (Frayer)

I found it too long as the action lost me at several points and I found my mind wandering...the farther away we venture from the initial presented perspective of Liese’s first person account of her story to her husband, and the longer we stay away from it, the greater the risk of breaking the audience's connection to the story. (Milne). 

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George Greller, New York Classical Review - link

 If anything might refute Theodor Adorno's statement that "to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric"[sic], it would be Mieczysław Weinberg's opera The Passenger... Just as one begins to think that Weinberg is a superior craftsman but without first-rate brilliance, the composer produces some breathtaking melodic and structural invention.

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Anthony Tommasini, New York Times - link

 The strongest quality of The Passenger... is the visceral way the work exposes the tension between the present and the past of its two main characters. The hero of the evening and, truly, of the opera, was Ms. Posmysz, whose novel was drawn from her own experiences at Auschwitz. Now 90, she received a prolonged ovation, along with the cast, the production team and Mr. Summers.

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David Patrick Stearns, Operavore blog, WQXR - link

Mieczyslaw Weinberg's 1968 opera The Passenger is not the great, cathartic Holocaust opera that we've been waiting for. One beautiful voice after another... emerged only periodically amid Weinberg's unmelodic vocal lines. More curious, the less-than-singable lines often lack dramatic eloquence, despite the savvy efforts of Michelle Breedt as the Auschwitz overseer Liese and James Maddalena as the ship's spectral steward. So instrumentally oriented is the score that its best scene isn't vocal at all: Defying orders to play a Nazi-favored waltz, a Jewish violinist force feeds the authorities Bach's famous unaccompanied Chaconne.

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Justin Davidson, Vulture.com - link

The Passenger has been resurrected in the guise of a historical triumph — a tale that must be told, a score that must be heard. But it remains troubling, an earnest, frequently beautiful, and fitfully powerful drama about the relationship between prisoner and guard. Its many splendid moments aestheticize Auschwitz; its weaker ones fall back on brutal cliché...Unwilling to write music as ugly as the situation and unable to plumb the complexities of the two women’s mutual dependency and hate, he falls back on a series of manipulative setpieces. But the opera’s emotional climax belongs not to either of the protagonists, but to Katya, a young partisan superbly sung by Kelly Kaduce, who brings her hardened barracks mates to tears with a plaintive Russian folk song. This may have been Weinberg’s attempt to ingratiate himself with Soviet authorities, rather than an integral part of the story, but it works its magic on New York audiences, too.

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Paul J. Pelkonen, Superconductor blog - link

Despite the questionable acoustic placement of the musicians, Weinberg's massive score was eclipsed by  the white-hot intensity of the story and the searing performances of the two female leads... the sweet vocal ensembles are among the opera's best moments, recalling Weinberg's expertise as a writer of string quartets. These caged angels were all established as distinct personalities, working together against their Nazi oppressors and showing great personal courage as they passed notes, plucked flowers, celebrated Marta's birthday and struggled to survive. Most of them didn't.

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Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times - link

It is difficult not to be moved by Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger... For at least one observer, it promised more than it could deliver... His brashly idealistic creation, which might have benefited from the intervention of a tough editor, harbours odd ingredients: Straussian passion, Brittenesque reflection, modernist dissonance and folksy-jazzy-popsy decoration... The acoustic limitations of the Armory drill hall required generous amplification, which made everyone sound heroic beyond the norm. A muted ovation at the end of three long hours of concerted misery suggested relief as much as approbation.

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Please feel free to link more reviews/articles in the comments box below - D.E. 

 

 

Just as one begins to think that Weinberg is a superior craftsman but without first-rate brilliance, the composer produces some breathtaking melodic and structural invention.

Weinberg's final resting place

The Grave of Mieczysław Weinberg, with Nadezhda Grinchar (Weinberg's Mother-in-Law), 49, Domodedovo Cemetery.

In a quiet cemetery outside of Moscow lies Weinberg's final resting place in a Russian Orthodox grave, in accordance with his final wishes. The plot is also the resting place of Nadezhda Grinchar, mother of Olga Rakhalskaya, Weinberg's second wife.

The inscription quotes the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 11, Verse 25:

'He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live'.

Credit for the photograph: link.