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Weinberg: Symphony No 2, Chamber Symphony / Svedlund


Release Date: 06/02/2009 
Label:  Musical Concepts   Catalog #: 1037   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Conductor:  Thord Svedlund
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Umeå Symphony Orchestra
Number of Discs: 1 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 0 Hours 57 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Warm and sumptuous recordings of two twentieth century classics of the North European string orchestra genre.

"Weinberg’s music is now riding a wave. Chandos are steadily recording the symphonies and concertos. Naxos have just issued the second of two discs of his music for solo cello and there seems to be much more to come.

Weinberg's Symphony No. 2 springs from a singing string orchestra tradition with its roots in Grieg's Holberg and Tchaikovsky's Serenade. Marry into the mix a degree of tartness from Berg and Schnittke but then soften with some Prokofiev from Romeo and Juliet. Stern thorn branches stiffen viscous blend and in the Adagio the resonance of William Schuman's writing for Read more massed strings is referenced - pure coincidence. There's some playful pizzicato in the Allegretto finale made edgy and witty with material rather akin to Shostakovich.

Wind forward forty years to 1987 and Chamber Symphony No. 2. Here is a work - again for strings - with, this time, timpani. The arching writing is tense and more dense than that of 1946-47 yet lyric material is still accessed as at 2:10.

The notes are by the late Per Skans and are taken from the original Olympia releases of the late 1990s.

The recording is warm and sumptuous."

– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
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Works on This Recording

1. Symphony no 2, Op. 30 by Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Conductor:  Thord Svedlund
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Umeå Symphony Orchestra
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1949; USSR 
 Length: 32 Minutes 37 Secs. 
2. Chamber Symphony no 2, Op. 147 by Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Conductor:  Thord Svedlund
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Umeå Symphony Orchestra
Period: 20th Century 
Written: 1987; USSR 
 Length: 24 Minutes 8 Secs. 

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review:  ( 1 Customer Review )
 more unique than an extension of Shostakovich January 27, 2013 By Endel Bendel (Spencer, MA) See All My Reviews "Been deeply impressed and affected by this composer since first exposure at a BSO chamber performance. Philosophical with new aural flavors. Consider, for example, the demented waltz which is the middle movement of the chamber sym. here, followed by a final movement which seems an unsentimental commentary on modernity, yet being slow and dark seems quintessentially Russian, Tolstoyan. In this work the world ends with a whimper and a bang." Report Abuse
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