Thesis submitted!

Regular readers will have noticed that this blog has fallen quiet in the last six months or so. I have been working away, and I'm very pleased to say that my thesis has been completed and submitted, awaiting a viva examination and any subsequent corrections. Watch this space for any further updates or news.

Recent news - controversy on the 20th anniversary of Weinberg's death

Perhaps the biggest piece of Weinberg-related news came on the twentieth anniversary of his death, on 26 February, with the release of a new interview with his first daughter, Victoria. The interview with Elisaveta Blumina (and edited by Il'ya Ovchinnikov) contains many warm details of Weinberg as a loving and kind father, as well as Victoria's thoughts on his music. The article can be found here (in Russian).

Victoria Bishops (neé Weinberg) and Elizaveta Blumina (picture from culta.ru)

While the details about Weinberg as a Father and his years in Warsaw go some way to 'fill in the gaps' for information about these aspects of his biography, it is in her claims about the years up to his death that Victoria makes some rather shocking assertions.

Firstly, she alleges that the mother of Weinberg's second wife, Grinchar Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, worked as a psychiatric nurse in the Butyrka prison - where Weinberg had been imprisoned (details are somewhat hazy as to where exactly Weinberg had been held during his imprisonment in 1953 - several sources mention both the Lubyanka and the Butyrka, suggesting an initial interrogation in the Lubyanka and then a holding cell in the Butyrka). This is, however, the first time that Weinberg's mother-in-law has been linked to the Butyrka in this way (this is crucial, since Weinberg shares the same grave as his mother-in-law, in Domodedovo cemetary). Weinberg's flat in Moscow, where his family live to this day, overlooks the Butyrka prison.

Further to this, Victoria asserts that Weinberg was baptised against his will (which, in the orthodox faith, makes any baptism illegitimate). He was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church in a quiet ceremony in his Moscow flat a few weeks before his death. According to Anna, his second daughter, it was entirely his own decision, with no prompting from anyone else.

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Reactions to these claims have ranged from confusion to outrage - especially in defence of Weinberg's second wife, Olga, and their daughter, Anna. Olga Rakhalskaya herself has written a response - to be found here (again, in Russian), at the end of which she concludes: 'on the twentieth anniversary of his death, 26 February, was there no better way to honour him than by throwing mud at the people close to him?'. She proceeds to put the record straight about her mother (who was not a psychiatric nurse at the Butyrka) and also gives more detail about Weinberg's conversion - that he swore to reach a decision by his birthday, 8 December, but had in fact made up his mind before this point. Olga's response also features excerpts from Weinberg's letters, previously published in 2000. These alone make Olga's response worth reading.

Olga Rakhalskaya (picture from muzobozrenie.ru)

The outcome of both of these articles remains to be seen - while both provide rich details for the scholar, it is on the personal level of Weinberg's life and family that makes them both vital but difficult reading. 

January 2016 update

Happy New Year! Here's a few bits of Weinberg-related news to keep you busy for the coming month.

Concerts
These are upcoming events happening in the UK:

London, Wigmore Hall
12 February, 19:30

Gidon Kremer, Daniil Trifonov, Giedre Dirvanauskaite

As part of the Wigmore Hall's 'featured artist' series, Trifonov gives a selection of concerts, including this one which features regular collaborators from the Kremeratica Baltica. Gidon Kremer needs no introduction, of course, and the talents of Dirvanauskaite's cello playing were highlighted on their ECM Weinberg album, released in 2014.

Programme includes:

• Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)

• Preghiera (arrangement of themes from the 2nd mvt of Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2)

• Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996)

• Sonata No. 5 for violin and piano Op. 53

• Sonata No. 3 for solo violin Op. 126

• INTERVAL

• Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

• Trio élégiaque No. 2 in D minor Op. 9

Tickets and further details available here.

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. 

Weinberg Piano Quintet in Manchester

Tomorrow evening, the Quatuor Danel will be performing Weinberg's Piano Quintet, Op. 18, in Manchester. Joining them will be superstar pianist, Alexander Melnikov.

Weinberg's Quintet is one of his very best works. Hear the composer himself performing with the Borodin Quartet in this classic recording:

Details for the concert and tickets can be found here.

As a preview, here's my programme note for the concert:

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.

Daniel Elphick