Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer
Release Date: 10 February 2014
Label: ECM New Series
Packaging Type: Brilliant Case (Jewel Case size, Holds 2 CDs)
No of Units: 2
Barcode: 028948106691
Genres: Classical Contemporary Classical
Description
The music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg is finally beginning to get the hearing it has long deserved. Weinberg's 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 by violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, recorded in Neuhardenberg and Lockenhaus, makes an excellent case for that claim.
Effectively a portrait album, it opens with one of Weinberg's most remarkable creations, the extraordinary and complex third violin sonata of 1978 brilliantly performed by Gidon Kremer. The violinist ranks this work alongside Bartók's Sonata for Solo Violin as one of the masterpieces for the instrument. With friends (including star pianist Daniil Trifonov) he explores some chamber music - the Trio op 48 (composed 1950) and the Sonatina op.46 (1949) - and the commitment and skills of the Kremerata musicians are brought to bear on two strikingly-contrasting compositions for string orchestra, the graceful and lyrical Concertino op. 42 (1948) and the adventurous and gripping Symphony No 10 (1968), bringing 12-tone rows and chordal structure into unexpected juxtapositions.
Latvian-born master violinist Gidon Kremer founded Kremerata Baltica in 1997 to foster outstanding young musicians from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, the three Baltic States. Their other ECM recordings are Hymns and Prayers with works by Tickmayer, Franck and Kancheli; a pairing of the adagio of Mahler's unfinished Symphony No 10 and the 14th Symphony of Shostakovich; Schubert's G Major String Quartet orchestrated by Victor Kissine; Gubaidulina's Lyre of Orpheus; Kancheli's In l'istesso tempo; Kissine's Between Two Waves, and, in the Edition Lockenhaus box set, Messiaen's Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and Strauss's Metamorphosen.
Personnel: Kremerata Baltica, Gidon Kremer (violin & director), Daniil Grishin (viola), Giedre Dirvanauskaite (cello), Daniil Trifonov (piano)
Tracklisting
Anna Gourari, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana & Markus Poschner
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute
Arvo Part
Thomas Larcher
John Holloway Ensemble
Heinz Holliger & Anton Kernjak
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra & Tonu Kaljuste
Karlheinz Stockhausen Michaels Reise
Gavin Bryars
Nikolaus Heyduck
Ostrava New Orchestra, Owen Underhill, Ostravska Banda, Petr Kotik, Elision Ensemble, Arditti Quartet, Switch~ Ensemble, Jason Thorpe Buchanan
Gavin Bryars
Ilse Eerens, Tomoko Kasai, Mayumi Miyata, Masanori Oishi, Saori Oya, Naoko Yoshino
L'Itineraire, Leo Margue
Hashtag Ensemble
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins, Andrew Davis
