Mieczys ław WEINBERG (1919-1996)
Symphony No. 8 Polish Flowers, Op. 83 (1964)
Rafał Bartmiński (tenor)*; Magdalena Dobrowolska (soprano)†;
Ewa Marciniec (alto)†
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir/Antoni Wit
rec. Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, Warsaw, Poland, 13-16 June 2011. DDD
World première recording
The Polish sung texts can be accessed at the
Naxos website.
Detailed track-list at end of review
NAXOS 8.572873 [58:32]
The fortunes of Weinberg’s music have hit a sustained upbeat and there’s
no sign of any downturn. This Naxos disc is part of the positive picture and
the third from that label to tackle the symphonies. The others are from the
St. Petersburg State Symphony under Vladimir Lande: Symphony No. 19 and The
Banners of Peace 8.572752 and Symphony No. 6 and Rhapsody on Moldavian
Themes 8.572779. These complement the long-running elite Chandos
series, some of which have been on hybrid SACDs. There are 26 Weinberg symphonies
so a collegiate effort should produce a complete cycle earlier. Bear in mind
that entries from the two big players have to be read with the early ex-Melodiya
discs from long-gone Olympia. The latter now fetch forbidding prices if you
can find the discs at all. More accessible are current issues from Neos,
Northern
Flowers and Melodiya
itself.
Weinberg’s life story has been recounted in outline often enough so
I will just mention that he studied composition with Vasily Zolotaryov and
laid the foundation for a life-long connection with Shostakovich when he impressed
the older composer with his First Symphony. He lived in Moscow from 1943.
During the 1960s Weinberg wrote seven symphonies among which choral symphonies
(nos. 6, 8 and 9) were a significant presence.
The Symphony No. 8, entitled Polish Flowers, is a complex ten-movement
work for tenor, soprano, alto, mixed choir and orchestra. A quick, dirty and
essentially unfair summary would have you expecting Shostakovich but without
the abrasive corners and corrosive surfaces; not that it is bland. It dates
from a decade when song-symphonies and anthology settings were the rage in
some quarters. Weinberg in fact sets a poetic cycle by one poet: Julian Tuwim
(1894-1953). Britten’s Spring Symphony is one example and the
Weinberg prompts the drawing of style parallels with Shostakovich himself
associated with Britten. His symphonies with voices - nos. 13 and 14 - were
written at the beginning and the end of the 1960s. Weinberg writes resourcefully
and with affecting beauty and edginess. It’s a cliché as an observation
but true here that the composer rarely uses his specified forces in their
monstrous totality. The palette is expansive but it is mostly applied with
delicacy rather than with a sledgehammer swing and crunch.
I could not get the Naxos link to the original sung Polish text to work.
The first movement, Gust of Spring is reflectively summery. Female
voices sound out quietly over tolling lower strings and percussion. The second
movement, Children of Bałuty, is full of pointed life for
the women’s voices over a string pizzicato. The imploring tenor Rafał
Bartmiński is lean, sweet and steady of voice. The dance idea, here carried
by solo and choir, has a real Shostakovich tang. In Front of the Old Hut
again features Bartmiński, this time against nostalgic woodwind pipings.
The avian murmur of woodwind and violin solo in There was an Orchard
is the accompaniment to the poet’s examination of Polish poverty but
ends in slamming drums and angry trombone-dominated brass. Hatred is on the
march. The sixth movement will remind you of Shostakovich. We return to the
swinging dance patterns of the second movement for chorus and orchestra with
wailing merciless energy. It ends with quiet brass groans and a masterful
side-drum stutter. The seventh movement, Warsaw Dogs, is a precipitous
fury of a piece with bright percussion much in evidence. A fortissimo shudder
bows us out and moves directly into the eighth movement, Mother. Again
Bartmiński proves a balm-ministering presence over the crooning of the
choir. The writing reminded me of the bleak-sweet baritone writing in Sibelius’s
Kullervo. As the liner note says: “The ninth movement, Justice,
contrasts the collapse of Nazi rule with a promise of freedom and equality
in the wake of the Soviet victory.” Confidently protesting massed voices
call out the message. The same note tells us that this music owes its ideas
to Weinberg’s 1958 song-cycle Reminiscences. The movement ends
with a massive chord like the slammed hammer-blows in Kullervo. This
makes way for the tenth movement, The Vistula flows. The river Vistula
is here taken as emblematic of the indestructible Polish spirit. The honeyed
tenor - central to this work - sets the consolatory caramel tone for the entry
by the choir. Episodes along the way in this long movement include a caressing
violin solo, deep shudders from the double basses, a clarinet piping amid
desolation and punctuating percussion. The tenor returns but now with more
passion. The music traces its way to a loudly indomitable epiphany and a descent
into understated musing and hard-won healing.
The Eighth Symphony, here tracked in ten movements, was premiered in Moscow
on 6 March 1966 by Alexander Yurlov with the Russian Academic Choir and the
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
It’s a pity that the words and translation are not there in the booklet,
however the notes by Richard Whitehouse helpfully take us through each poem
in English. The sung texts are heard in the original Polish.
This sensational recording was produced, engineered and edited by Andrzej
Sasin and Aleksandra Nagórko of the Polish label CD Accord.
Another major entry in the Weinberg catalogue. The picture continues to emerge
and with each instalment we can start forming our own appraisal of this music
and the man behind it. Certainly multi-faceted, very humane and un-attracted
by fashionable modernism, here is a composer who still sees and acts on the
impulse to communicate with audiences beyond academe, beyond factions. His
writing is fascinating for what we know and intriguing in the mass of music
we have yet to hear.
All in all, this is another major and very personal entry in the catalogue.
It is one that should also fascinate adherents of Shostakovich’s symphonies
of the 1960s.
Rob Barnett
This is another major and very personal entry in the catalogue and one that
should also fascinate adherents of Shostakovich’s symphonies of the
1960s.
Detailed track list
1 Podmuch wiosny (Gust of Spring) 3:57
2 Bałuckie dzieci (Children of Bałuty)* 4:02
3 Przed starą chatą (In Front of the Old Hut)* 3:59
4 Był sad (There was an Orchard)† 5:13
5 Bez (Elderberry) 3:16
6 Lekcja (Lesson)* 7:33
7 Warszawskie psy (Warsaw Dogs)* 5:44
8 Matka (Mother)* 6:24
9 Sprawiedliwość (Justice) 6:14
10 Wisła płynie (The Vistula flows)* 12:11
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