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Artist: Gidon Kremer
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Gidon Kremer:

Songs Of Fate-Kremerata Baltica,Vida Mikneviciute

On Songs of Fate Gidon Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Giedrius Kuprevicius, Raminta Šerkšnyte, Jekabs Jancevskis and the Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Mikneviciute – many of the works captured here appear in premiere recordings. In his performer’s note, Kremer traces the roots of this programme back to both his Jewish heritage and his extensive history of living in the Baltic states, which has and continues to lead to collaborations with countless musicians and composers from the region. The personal connotations are palpable in the music, as Wolfgang Sandner observes in his liner note, confirming: “Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording”.

Kremer has already given Weinberg’s oeuvre much attention in the past decades with recordings of the sonatas for solo violin (ECM 2705), his chamber symphonies Nos. 1-4 (2538/39) as well as the symphony no. 10 along with the concertino op. 42. Trio op. 48 and the sonata No. 3 (ECM 2368/69). Included on Songs of Fate are a selection of Weinberg’s Jewish Songs op. 13, Nocturne, Kujawiak as well as Aria op.9. The pieces demonstrate the lyrical side of the composer’s vast oeuvre, with the Jewish Songs highlighting Vida Mikneviciute’s expressive and resourceful vocal abilities.

Gidon Kremer:

Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Sonatas for Violin Solo

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.“  

Gidon Kremer:

New Seasons w/Kremerata Baltica

Gidon Kremer returns to the Yellow Label after more than a decade with a reference recording of Philip Glass's Second Violin Concerto, "The American Seasons".  This release is his first solo concerto album in many years and is a return to a subject matter that has fascinated him throughout his career.  The all-new album includes additional works by Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli and Shigeru Umebayashi and features the Kremerata Baltica.  According to Kremer, "The subject of seasons in music has always interested me and has become the focus of a number of my recordings and concert programs. Among them are my first recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (with Claudio Abbado), "Eight Seasons" (combining Vivaldi and Piazzolla), and "The Russian Seasons" (works specially commissioned for me and Kremerata Baltica from Leonid Desyatnikov and Alexander Raskatov, who based his piece on Tchaikovsky's Seasons), as well as concert-tour programs such as "Seasons Forever" and "GSS – Gidon Sun Shines."