Kremer Performs Weinberg Solo Sonatas

Violinist Gidon Kremer (photograph by Madara Pētersone, courtesy of Jensen Artists)

According to my records, violinist Gidon Kremer did not begin to record the music of Mieczysław Weinberg until the recording he made for ECM New Series in January 2014. Working with his Kremerata Baltica colleagues, he began to explore the rich diversity of the Weinberg catalog, all of which had been overlooked in the “anthology” releases of the recordings he had made for Deutsche Grammophon and the diversity of labels that are now part of the Warner family. For those that do not yet know the story, Weinberg was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw but managed to stay one step ahead of the Nazis by fleeing to the Soviet Union, where Dmitri Shostakovich became both a good friend and an influential colleague.

The good news is that Shostakovich’s influence did nothing to distort Weinberg’s own ideas about composition. The bad news is, of course, the extent to which both composers had to deal with Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s attitude toward all artists was rather like a weather vane that never settles into a single direction. One would have thought that such an attitude would become more tolerable after Germany was defeated towards the end of World War II. Instead, Stalin and his closest associates sought out new enemies, and creatively inventive artists found themselves on a diversity of “hit lists.”

So it was that Weinberg found himself imprisoned on a paranoid-based charge of murder. After he was sentenced to death, Shostakovich expended much of his own social capital to prevent that execution. However, Weinberg was ultimately saved because of Stalin’s own death, after which he was one of many artists to be “rehabilitated.”

There is an extensive diversity of genres in Weinberg’s catalog. However, it would be fair to say that chamber music was one of his major “sweet spots;” and, within that category, he showed a great interest in compositions for solo instruments. Kremer’s latest ECM project is devoted to the three sonatas that Weinberg composed for solo violin, composed in 1964, 1967, and 1979, respectively. As of this writing, the album is scheduled for release in exactly one week; and Amazon.com is only releasing the album in digital form. The Web page for that release allows one to pre-order the album with “sneak previews” of the second movements of the first two sonatas.

In making this album, Kremer decided to present the three sonatas in reverse chronological order. This may turn out to be a bit of a stretch, particularly for those unfamiliar with the tropes in Weinberg’s knapsack and the approaches he took for other solo instrument sonatas. The third sonata consists of a single uninterrupted movement lasting over twenty minutes. Fortunately, the booklet notes include “a sort of hidden programme,” describing the sonata in terms of seven episodes, each with its own programmatic title.

To some extent this may be a reflection on the second sonata. This one has seven explicit movements (each with its own track). All seven of the movements have single-word titles that, presumably, inform both performer and listener of the motivations behind how those movements were structured:

1. Monody
2. Rests
3. Intervals
4. Replies
5. Accompaniment
6. Invocation
7. Syncopes

The first sonata, on the other hand, consists of a familiar plan pf five movements, all identified by their respective tempo indications.

Experience has taught me that repeated listening is the best way to become acquainted with any selection from the impressive volume of chamber music works that Weinberg composed. The descriptive content of the booklet notes by Wolfgang Sandner (translated into English by J. Bradford Robinson) is likely to be of service when the listener first gets to know these sonatas. However, I tend to view such descriptions as “training wheels.” As the overall listening experiences become more familiar, mind will find its own way to disclose interpretative disclosures.

Most importantly, familiarity is likely to facilitate the ability of the listener to identify foundations of wit behind all three of these sonatas and their respective movements/episodes. When Fate saves one’s life by taking, instead, the life of Stalin, it is hard to avoid developing a keen sense of irony. What is interesting, however, is that, as that memory of the threat of execution receded to a more and more distant past, Weinberg seems to have become more inclined to view that irony with a cheery disposition. The listeners that eventually discover the playfulness behind these three sonatas are likely to be those that most cherish the very act of listening.