The Career-spanning Clarinet Music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg

This release features three works that span the composer's career. Mieczyslaw Weinberg wrote his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano as a student work. His Chamber Symphony No. 4 was his last completed composition. The Clarinet Concerto is a mature work, written in 1970.

Taken in order, the three works trace the development of the composer. The 1937 Clarinet Sonata has -- I think -- a little bit of snark to it. Weinberg references older musical styles while tweaking them with little dissonances and odd harmonies. It's a youthful composition and at times a high-spirited one.

By 1970, Weinberg was a different person. Like his friend Shostakovich, his creative inclinations were constrained by Soviet orthodoxy. He was only partially successful coloring within the lines.

This concerto, for example, is mostly tonal. Yet it seems to constantly be pulling towards atonality with sliding chromatic harmonies and extended chords.

By 1992, Weinberg was finally free to write what he wanted to. And the results are fascinating. Weinberg's work was considered old-fashioned at the time. His language is still tonal, but it's a free, wide-ranging tonality.

His use of instruments is quite unusual. It's primarily a work for string orchestra. And yet he overlays a clarinet obbligato onto it. And he also adds percussion -- sort of. The score has a triangle that plays only four notes.

It's an odd combination that nevertheless blend to create something quite beautiful and unique.

In the liner notes clarinetist, Robert Oberaigner says, "Weinberg wrote very skilfully for the clarinet, expressively staging the dynamic range of the instrument and writing beautiful vocal lines in the low register."

Quite so. and Oberaigner plays to perfection. His tone is warm and mellow in the low registers. And its clear and clean in the upper register without being shrill.

Obreraigner also wrote that the conductor, Michail Jurowski, was a friend of Weinberg. He "brought me closer to the many facets of this music, gave everyone involved deep insights into the link between Weinberg’s music and his life."

Those insights are what appealed to me most about this release. The performances communicate those deep emotions that Weinberg was often required to suppress. The emotions that give his music its power.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Clarinet Music
Clarinet Concerto; Clarinet Sonata; Chamber Symphony No. 4
Robert Oberaigner, clarinet; Michael Schöch, piano
Dresden Chamber Soloists; Michail Jurowski, conductor
Naxos 8.574192