Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica: Mieczyslaw Weinberg (2014)

The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is finally beginning to get the hearing it has long deserved. Weinbergs lifetime spanned the 20th century: born 1919 in Warsaw, he died 1996 in Moscow, in semi-obscurity. Along the way, his allies and supporters had included Dmitri Shostakovich, who considered him one of the great composers of the age. This double album with the Kremerata Baltica, recorded in Neuhardenberg and Lockenhaus, makes a good case for that claim. Effectively a portrait album, it begins with Weinbergs extraordinary Violin Sonata No. 3, brilliantly performed by Gidon Kremer, and proceeds from chamber music works (the Sonatina op. 46, the Trio op. 48) to strikingly-contrasting compositions for string orchestra, the graceful Concertino op. 42 inspired by the late-romantic idiom, and the adventurous Symphony no 10, bringing 12-tone rows and chordal structure into unexpected juxtapositions. (bron: ECM)