Weinberg: String Quartets Nos. 6, 13 and 15 (Chandos)
★★★★☆
What small labels do greatest is backing the proprietor’s hunches. BIS in Stockholm produced symphonies by Alfred Schnittke when he was unheard outdoors Russia. Hyperion in south London resurrected nineteenth century piano concertos. Cedille in Chicago backs off-beat US composers. Manfred Eicher’s ECM in Munich is the engine behind Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli and Chick Correa. These labels are sometimes the lion kings of classical recording.
We owe the rediscovery of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a Polish refugee in Soviet Russia, to a father-son workforce in Colchester, England, working from a cell recording unit. Their firm, Chandos, launched its first Weinberg recording across the flip of the century and has hardly paused since. A set of the entire 26 symphonies was interrupted, however the 17 string quartets are nearing completion within the arms of the Bucharest-based Arcadia Quartet.
The sixth quartet, dated 1946, is among the many longest and most enthralling. Unperformed for six a long time, it encapsulates the composer’s twin feelings on the top of conflict and the renewal of Soviet terror. A quiet thanksgiving for peace is interrupted by rasping orders and hints of brutality. Weinberg maybe over-dramatises the primary and sixth actions, however there may be at all times a brand new half-melody to tweak the ear and a promise of survival. The finale gives distinctive magnificence.
The one-movement thirteenth quartet was composed after the loss of life of Dmitri Shostakovich, Weinberg’s mentor and protector, in 1975. It quantities to an intimate tribute, enriched with quotations from Shostakovich quartets. The fifteenth quartet, from 1979, is wilfully enigmatic, missing a phrase of description for every motion, which veer from rage to silence.
The Arcadians are positive gamers. In the event that they barely overdo the uncooked anger on this music, their ardour is mitigated by a profound instinct of the composer’s ambiguities. I be taught extra with every listening. The braveness of the Couzens household at Chandos deserves a medal. They not too long ago bought the corporate to Naxos founder Klaus Heymann.
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