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Mieczysław Weinberg

Mieczysław Weinberg:Weinberg

Mieczysław Weinberg (also Moisey Vainberg, Moisey Samuilovich Vaynberg; Russian Моисей Самуилович Вайнберг; Polish Mieczysław Wajnberg) (December 8 1919 in Warsaw, Poland – February 26 1996 in Moscow, Russia) was a Polish and Soviet composer who lived in the Soviet Union and Russia since before the World War II (1939) and lost most of his family to the Nazis. His large body of work included twenty-two symphonies and seventeen string quartets; according to one reviewer he ranked as, "the third great Soviet composer, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich".[1]


Contents

Names

Much confusion has been caused by different renditions of the composer's names. In the Polish language (i.e. prior to his move to the USSR), his name was spelled as 'Mieczysław Wajnberg', but he adopted the name 'Moisey' and the patronymic 'Samuilovich' on his arrival in the Soviet Union, both being the accepted Russian renditions of the Jewish names 'Moishe' and 'Shmuel' (his father's name). Indeed, Weinberg used the given name 'Moishe' in the Soviet Yiddish-language publications. He was also among his friends known by his nickname, 'Metek'. In the Soviet Union, his surname was naturally transliterated into the Cyrillic alphabet as 'Вайнберг', from which re-transliteration back into the Latin alphabet produced a variety of spellings, including 'Weinberg', 'Vainberg', and 'Vaynberg'. The form 'Weinberg' is now being increasingly used, notably in the latest edition of Grove and by Weinberg's biographer, Per Skans.[2]

Life

Weinberg was born in 1919 to a Jewish family in Warsaw. His father, Shmil (or Shmuel) Wajnberg (1882-1943), moved to Warsaw from Chişinău a decade before Weinberg's birth and worked as a violinist and conductor for a Yiddish theatre in Warsaw, where the future composer joined him as pianist at the age of 10 and later as a musical director of several performances[1]. The family had already been the victim of anti-semitic violence in Bessarabia— his great-grandfather and grandfather were killed during the Kishinev pogrom in 1903. Weinberg entered the Warsaw Conservatory, studying piano, at the age of twelve, and graduated in 1939. He fled to the Soviet Union on the outbreak of war (his parents and sister remained behind and perished in the Trawniki concentration camp). He spent two years in Minsk, where he studied composition for the first time, and then in Tashkent, where he wrote works for the opera and met Solomon Mikhoels, whose daughter Natalia he married.

In 1943 he moved to Moscow at the urging of Dmitri Shostakovich, who was impressed by his talent and was to become his close friend. Meeting Shostakovich had a profound effect on the younger man, who said later that, "It was as if I had been born anew".[3]

Mikhoels was murdered in 1948 as part of Stalin's post-war anti-semitic campaign. Some of Weinberg's works were among those banned during the Zhdanovshchina of 1948, and for a time he could make a living only by composing for the theatre and circus. In February 1953, he himself was arrested on charges of "Jewish bourgeois nationalism" in relation to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair: Shostakovich wrote to Lavrenti Beria to intercede on Weinberg's behalf, as well as agreeing to look after Weinberg's daughter if his wife was also arrested. In the event, he was saved by Stalin's death the following month, and he was officially rehabilitated shortly afterwards.[4]

Thereafter Weinberg continued to live in Moscow, composing and performing as a pianist. He and Shostakovich lived nearby, sharing ideas on a daily basis. Besides the admiration which Shostakovich frequently expressed for Weinberg's works, they were taken up by some of Russia's foremost performers, including Emil Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Mstislav Rostropovich and Kurt Sanderling.

Towards the end of his life, Weinberg was bedridden with Crohn's disease, although he continued to compose. He reportedly converted to Orthodox Christianity shortly before his death.[5]

Works

Main article: List of compositions by Mieczyslaw Weinberg

Weinberg's output includes twenty-two symphonies, other works for orchestra (including chamber symphonies and sinfoniettas), seventeen string quartets, eight violin sonatas (three solo and five with piano), twenty-four preludes for cello and six cello sonatas (two with piano and four solo), six piano sonatas, numerous other instrumental works, as well as more than 40 film and cartoon scores (including The Cranes are Flying, Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, 1958). He wrote seven operas, and considered one of them, Passazhirka (written in 1967-68), to be his most important work.[6] His piano quintet, piano trio and cello works have received performances in concert series and festivals across Europe and the USA in recent years, and the British record label Olympia released over fifteen compact disc recordings of his music, consisting of both original recordings and remasterings of earlier Melodiya LPs.

Weinberg's works frequently have a strong programmatic element: throughout his life he continually referred back to his formative years in Warsaw and to the war which ended that earlier life. Typically, however, this darkness serves as a background to the finding of peace through catharsis. This desire for harmony is also evident in his musical style; Lyudmilla Nikitina emphasises the "neo-classical, rationalist clarity and proportion" of his works.[7]

Although he never formally studied with Shostakovich, the older composer had an obvious influence on Weinberg's music. Explicit connections include the pianissimo passage with celesta which ends the Fifth Symphony, reminiscent of Shostakovich's Fourth and written around the time of that work's premiere. Another Weinberg work, his sixth piano sonata, quotes one of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues. More general similarities in musical language include the use of extended melodies, repetitive themes and extreme registers. This has been one of the main criticisms voiced of Weinberg: Alexander Ivashkin has argued that composers such as Weinberg damaged not only their reputations, but also that of Shostakovich himself: "these works only served to kill off Shostakovich's music, to cover it over with a scab of numerous and bad copies".[8]

Nevertheless, Shostakovich was not the only influence on Weinberg's style. Nikitina identifies Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Bartók and Mahler as other influences, while the trumpet concerto quotes Mendelssohn's well-known Wedding March. Naturally Jewish music features heavily, but one can also find other ethnic elements, including Moldavian, Polish, and Armenian. Weinberg has been identified by some critics as the source of Shostakovich's own increased interest in klezmer themes in the period after he met the Jewish composer.[9]

References

  1. ^ Steve Schwarz, review of The Golden Key on Classical Net Review, 2004.
  2. ^ Skans, Per. Quoted on Black Arrow.
  3. ^ Quoted in Grove, p. 236.
  4. ^ Wilson pp. 227-231.
  5. ^ Reilly, Robert R. (February 2000). Light in the Dark: The Music of Mieczyslaw Vainberg in Catholic Information Center on Internet, Crisis.
  6. ^ Grove, p. 236.
  7. ^ Grove, p. 236.
  8. ^ Ivashkin, Alexander p. 255. Shostakovich and Schnittke: the erosion of symphonic syntax in Fanning (ed) Shostakovich Studies. Cambridge University Press (1995). ISBN 0-521-45239-2 .
  9. ^ MacDonald, Ian. Music Under Soviet Rule: MIECZYSLAW VAINBERG.

Categories


1919 births | 1996 deaths | Polish Jews | 20th century classical composers | Film score composers | Polish composers | Jewish composers and songwriters | Russian composers

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