Mieczysław Weinberg: Complete Violin Sonatas, Volume One
Mieczysław Weinberg, born in Warsaw in 1919, became a close friend of Shostakovich in Moscow, after fleeing eastwards before the invading Nazis in 1939. His vast output includes 26 symphonies, seven operas, seventeen string quartets and much other chamber music and some 200 songs. His style has much in common with Shostakovich, as these four violin works show: fluent contrapuntal skill, a keen feeling for melody, often inflected with Jewish cantilena, and an acute sense of drama which combines a natural narrative manner with an extraordinary ability to create atmosphere, often from just a handful of notes. Since his death in 1996, his music is being discovered by musicians and listeners all around the world.
Yuri Kalnits, violin
Michael Csányi-Wills, piano
Listen To This Recording:
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Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Op. 12
- I. Allegro
- II. Adagietto
- III. Allegro
- I. Adagio – Allegro – Adagio
- II. Andante
- III. Allegretto
- IV. Lento
- V. Presto
- I. Adagio –
- II. Allegro ma non troppo – Adagio tenuto molto rubato (quasi Cadenza) – Adagio primo
- I. Allegretto
- II. Lento – Allegro – Tempo Primo
- III. Allegro moderato – Lento
Sonata No. 1 for Violin Solo, Op. 82
Sontata No. 4 for Violin and Piano, Op. 39
Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 46
Classical Music Sentinel :
‘a work of deep lyrical beauty…Highly recommended!’
—Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel
MusicWeb International :
‘The Sonata No. 1 for solo violin, Op. 82, is something else again, a brutally difficult technical tour de force with all of the violin’s resources, including quadruple stops, deployed in the service of a unique, unrelenting quality.’
—James Manheim, MusicWeb International
Fanfare Magazine :
‘The release should provide a most auspicious introduction to Weinberg’s violin music, offering a chameleon-like variety that extends from the feral onslaught of the Solo Sonata to the profundities of the Fourth Sonata and to the outright melodiousness of the First. Strongly recommended for repertoire, performances, and recorded sound.’
—Robert Maxham, Fanfare Magazine
Gramophone :
‘Yuri Kalnits and Michael Csányi-Wills prove uber-sensitive to Weinberg’s harmonic push-pull, and Kalnits’s performance of the Sonata No 1 for Violin Solo (1964) rolls with the technical punches like a true heavyweight…’
—Philip Clark, Gramophone
MusicWeb International :
‘This is an extremely good start to the projected series.’
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International