Mieczyslaw Weinberg – Sonatas for Violin Solo
- Sonatas for Solo Violin:
- No. 1, Op. 82 (1964)
- No. 2, Op. 95 (1967)
- No. 3, Op. 126 (1979)
- Gidon Kremer (violin)
- rec. July 2013, No. 3; December 2019, Nos 1-2 ECM New Series 485 6943 [64:35]
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Violinist Gidon Kremer rewards himself on the occasion of his 75th birthday with his realization of the three solo sonatas composed by Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, each of which pays homage to the mighty Chaconne in D Minor from J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2, BWV 1004. The Sonata No. 3, moreover, composed in 1979 and dedicated by Weinberg “to the memory of my father,” evolves in one, continuous movement, claiming kinship with the 1944 Bartok Solo Sonata in passionate syntax and technical difficulties. In its more temperamental aspects, this music would claim Shostakovich as a spiritual model. A searing opening in double stops, acerbic dissonances, high harmonics, trills, and discursive recitative-parlando passages leads us to an emotionally violent canvas periodically interrupted with lyric and even playful nostalgia.