RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Mieczyslaw WEINBERG (1919-1996)
Symphony No 20, Op 150 (1988) [39:47]
Cello Concerto, Op 92 (1948) [31:03]
Claes Gunnarsson (cello)
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Thord Svedlund
rec. 11-13 August (symphony) and 22-24 August (concerto) 2011,
Concert Hall, Gothenburg, Sweden
CHANDOS SACD CHSA 5107 [70:50]
There is no way to prepare the new listener for Mieczyslaw
Weinberg’s cello concerto. I cannot describe its emotional tenor: the
concerto’s opening throws aside all pretensions, all formal dress, and
simply exposes its heart. The work’s full power works upon you within
ten seconds.
I cannot describe its structure adequately except to say that it is
“circular”. That is, we begin in one place and meditate on it
without formal development until we reach another - the klezmer-influenced
second movement. This again is elaborated without formal complications and
dissolved into the next part, a vigorous Caucasian folk-dance which evokes
Khachaturian and feels like a finale. This, too, gives way, and the ensuing
cadenza is the first time we hear themes from the concerto in interplay.
Then we finally get a finale - which really brings us full circle, back to
where we started.
I cannot describe my esteem of this concerto without sounding like a
fool. I love it. I’ve never heard anything else by Weinberg that even
comes close, although his piano quintet is fantastic. Then again, I’ve
hardly heard anything by anybody that compares to this. Okay,
I’ll sound like a fool: after the Dvořák, this is my
favorite cello concerto.
What makes me feel silly saying all this is that the piece itself
lacks all such air or formalities. It does not require critical texts,
doesn’t need anyone to sing its praises. All it asks is that you
listen to it, and then you will understand.
So why are there so few recordings of Weinberg’s cello
concerto? There lies a mystery. Aside from a disc on Northern Flowers (my
colleague Jonathan Woolf called the reading “heavy”), Claes Gunnarsson, the very good cellist
here, is up against only one formidable opponent: dedicatee Mstislav
Rostropovich, in a live broadcast from February 1964 which can be heard on
Brilliant Classics’ ‘Historic Russian Archives’ series.
Gunnarsson doesn’t quite make my jaw hit the floor in the opening
adagio - Rostropovich is peerless at the simple heart-shredding melancholy
of that moment - but he and conductor Thord Svedlund collaborate on a third
movement which is both exciting and very clear, very musical. Rostropovich
and Gennady Rozhdestvensky blaze through the folk sections at an unseemly
pace. Moreover, Gunnarsson is so good that this performance will be
mandatory for much more than just the extraordinary sound quality.
The Symphony No 20 is a wholly different matter. If the concerto is
Weinberg at his most direct, most soulful, most astonishing, the symphony is
the composer at his most cryptic and bitter. His rather dour reputation in
the west is the product of that bitter tendency, which unfortunately also
colours most of his solo cello music (review, review). The symphony, dating from 1988 when the
composer was nearing age 70, cocoons itself in that moroseness and, as the
booklet gently says, is “exceptionally hard to fathom”.
The first movement is an adagio which is not all that depressing,
really, but also quite monotonous; imagine the opening of
Shostakovich’s Sixth, but without any memorable melodic material and
with maybe only one climax. It does build impressively albeit mysteriously
over its span. The second-movement scherzo is more austere, and represents
no obvious contrast except in tempo - although there is a good bit for muted
trumpet and winds. Then there’s an intermezzo which again feels
foreign and aloof, propelled by bounding bass pizzicatos which are
simultaneously jaunty and forbidding. The second scherzo does us the favor
of creating a melodic hook and sticking to a consistent, exciting mood with
lots of added percussion. It’s absolutely fantastic. The lento finale
allows some light through the clouds at long last, and permits itself more
lyricism than we’d heard previously. It also features a dark flute
solo accompanied by piano and bass clarinet, but these come on the way to a
surprisingly positive ending.
The Symphony No 20 is hard to make out, then, but it’s not
exactly a painful experience either. The fourth movement is terrific, and
the others, while forbidding, have their moments. I am a little doubtful
about whether the work hangs together coherently, and I think many listeners
will detect the scent of Shostakovich and Prokofiev in certain passages.
There will be no such thing in the cello concerto, for no shadows hang over
that work. It is entirely Weinberg’s, and it is a masterpiece. It
deserves to be a mainstay of every cellist’s repertoire, alongside
Dvorák, Elgar, and Shostakovich, and if in a decade or two it has
received the attention it deserves, we will have Chandos and soloist Claes
Gunnarsson to thank.
Brian Reinhart
At last! A new recording of one of my favorite cello concertos. Drop everything and listen to this.