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Gidon Kremer

Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Sonatas for Violin Solo

ECM
Release Date: November 19, 2021

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1 Weinberg: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 3, Op. 126  
2 Weinberg: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 2, Op. 95 / I. Monody  
3 II. Rests  
4 III. Intervals  
5 Weinberg: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1, Op. 82 / I. Adagio-Allegro  
6 II. Andante  
7 III. Allegretto  
8 IV. Lento  
9 V. Presto  
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Gidon Kremer’s ardent championing of the work of Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) has helped to bring about a re-evaluation of the Polish composer’s music. “I am very pleased,” Kremer has said, “that the world is slowly recognizing Mieczyslaw Weinberg as an important composer. For me personally, the treasure trove of his compositions remains a constant source of enthusiasm and inspiration."  

The present edition, conceived as “a monument to magnificent 20th century solo literature for violin” brings together Weinberg’s three sonatas, written in 1964, 1967 and 1979. These are richly creative and technically demanding works, rooted in the great tradition established by Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Yet, while they are reflections on contrapuntal invention, they are also radically expressive pieces. Each has a strikingly different formal design, and heard side by side they give insight into the evolution of Weinberg’s musical thought.  

Gidon Kremer has drawn comparisons between Weinberg’s complex Third Sonata (dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father) and the Bartók solo sonata. It is a work overflowing with dynamism and colour and emotion. In the liner notes Wolfgang Sandner remarks that the sonata´s „underlying character, with its extremely dissonant double-stops, madcap agglomerations of trills and passages of almost ghostly textural thinness, only becomes comprehensible in the light of its dedicatee and his fate, which Weinberg must have borne constantly in mind in his efforts to fashion a dramatic musical edifice.“  

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