Weinberg: Cello Concerto & Symphony No. 20

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

Chandos's burgeoning Weinberg series goes from strength to strength with this latest stunningly engineered release featuring two works of strikingly different character...it would be difficult... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2012, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Apr 2012
Catalogue No: CHSA5107
Label: Chandos
Length: 70 minutes

This item is currently out of stock at the UK distributor. You may order it now but please be aware that it may be six weeks or more before it can be despatched.

This release includes a digital booklet

Chandos - Downloads at MP3 Prices

Special offer ends: 22/05/2024

Weinberg: Symphony No. 20, Op. 150

Work length39:46

$9.00

$11.60

$15.75

Thord Svedlund, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

I. Adagio - Meno mosso - Meno mosso

Track length12:53

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

II. Allegretto - Coda

Track length4:49

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

III. Con moto

Track length5:16

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

IV. Allegro molto

Track length4:32

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

V. Lento - Meno mosso

Track length12:16

$3.00

$3.85

$5.25

Weinberg: Cello Concerto in D Minor, Op. 43

Work length31:00

$7.00

$9.10

$12.25

Thord Svedlund, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Claes Gunnarsson

I. Adagio

Track length7:19

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

II. Moderato - Lento

Track length5:41

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

III. Allegro

Track length8:43

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

IV. Allegro - Adagio - Meno mosso

Track length9:17

$2.00

$2.60

$3.50

About
Reviews
Explore

About

This is the fourth disc in our series dedicated to the orchestral works of Mieczysław Weinberg, performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Thord Svedlund. The cello soloist is Claes Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s leading cellists, who combines the post as Principal Cello of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with a brilliant solo career.

After the Second World War, along with many other composers, Weinberg was subjected to a series of campaigns against so-called Formalism in the Soviet arts. As a result he turned his attention to concertante works, a medium less prone to censure than symphonies, sonatas, and quartets. The first movement of the Cello Concerto shares the tense, pensive lyricism found in the opening Nocturne of Shostakovich’s almost exactly contemporaneous First Violin Concerto. This later gives way to the rhythms of a habanera and some impassioned passages of Jewish klezmer, almost as if to guarantee a healthy quota of folk-rooted intonations (a required antidote to charges of Formalism), while at the same time allowing for deeper emotions too.

In the 1970s, Weinberg’s symphonic production went in two distinct but complementary directions. One of these was at the patriotic end of the Socialist Realist spectrum, while the other was much more abstract. Weinberg’s highly austere five-movement Symphony No. 20 clearly falls into the latter category – challenging, perplexing, and unpredictable. In the second scherzo Weinberg quotes from his opera The Portrait, based on a short story by Gogol. In fact, the finale perfectly captures the mood of the opera’s closing scenes, in which the artist protagonist realises that he has betrayed his calling, and sinks into delirium and eventual death.

A previous volume in our Weinberg series (CHSA5089: Symphony No. 3 and Suite No. 4 from The Golden Key) was nominated for a Grammy this year, in the Best Engineered Album category.

Reviews

December 2012

Chandos's burgeoning Weinberg series goes from strength to strength with this latest stunningly engineered release featuring two works of strikingly different character...it would be difficult to imagine a more assured and committed performance than is provided by the Gothenburg Symphony under Thord Svedlund.

September 2012

Svedlund keeps the pacing taut, the dynamics squeezed and turns Weinberg's parting mystery - an incongruous blare of quasi-conquering C major - into a proper head-scratcher.

June 2012

Claes Gunnarsson delivers a perceptive account of a work which could yet achieve well-deserved popularity...Thord Svedlund secures playing from the Gothenburg Symphony of an insight and commitment equal to that on the previous instalments in this series...In its bringing together the most approachable and inscrutable aspects of the composer's creativity, indeed, this is as thought-provoking a release as any in the Weinberg discography.

August 2012

There is no way to prepare the new listener for Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s cello concerto...the concerto’s opening throws aside all pretensions, all formal dress, and simply exposes its heart...It deserves to be a mainstay of every cellist’s repertoire

26th May 2012

Very, very occasionally you come across unknown pieces of music which have an instant, overwhelming physical impact...Weinberg’s 1948 Cello Concerto is one of those works, an understated jewel...The opening Adagio of the concerto is a stunner, an effortless, lyrical outpouring which has haunted me for weeks...Beautiful sound and excellent performances

Offer,Weinberg: Cello Concerto & Symphony No. 20

CD

Downloads

Contents

Download queue