Mieczysław Weinberg: Piano Sonatas Nos. 2 and 4. Piano
Sonata, op. 49bis
Elisaveta Blumina (pn)
CPO 555 104-2 (65:32)
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New classical music releases reviewed in detail by Gavin Dixon
Sunday, 18 February 2018
Weinberg Piano Sonatas 2 4 op49bis Blumina
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Elisaveta
Blumina here continues her project to record Weinberg’s chamber music, this her
second album of solo piano works, adding to a catalog that also includes the
Piano Trio, Double Bass Sonata, and a disc of woodwind sonatas. The three piano
sonatas here span Weinberg’s diverse career, so there is plenty of variety. Another
recording project, a complete solo piano works from Allison Brewster Franzetti
on the Grand Piano label, runs to four CDs, so this constitutes about a quarter
of the repertoire. The two numbered sonatas here, Nos. 2 and 4, are from a
canonical six, while the op. 49bis is a reworking of earlier music into a
sonata structure.
The program
opens with the Second Sonata, dating from 1942, a period when Weinberg was predominantly
occupied with film and television music: his famous contributions to the
Russian version of Winnie the Pooh
date from these years. Most discussion of Weinberg’s stylistic trajectory plots
his work against the increasing influence of—or mutual influence
with—Shostakovich, which is certainly apparent in the Fourth Sonata. However,
the Second sounds closer to Prokofiev, especially in its percussive,
toccata-like first movement. The energy and drive make for a highly engaging
start to the program, and Blumina finds an ideal balance between the focussed attacks
and the sonority required to maintain the long lines. With the exception of the
slow third movement, most of this work plays out in two-part counterpoint
between the hands, and Blumina’s clarity of texture plays dividends throughout.
The Adagio third movement feels a bit
too long for the work’s otherwise concise proportions, but it is beautifully structured
in this performance, with Weinberg’s gradual build-up to the climax carefully
paced in volume and harmonic density.
The Sonata, op. 49bis,
is dated 1979 but is in fact a reworking of the Sonatina of 1951, itself an elaboration
of music from Weinberg’s Childhood
Notebooks, previously recorded by Blumina on CPO 777517. Despite having
been twice expanded, the music retains an intimacy and appealing gentle
character. Of its three movements, the first two are markedly more chordal than
in the Second Sonata, while the fugal finale returns us to Weinberg’s
contrapuntal tendencies, although his delicacy and charm remain, and, although the
work fits squarely in Stalinist-era socialist realism aesthetics, there is
never any pedantry or dryness, and the music’s simplicity works to its
advantage throughout.
The Fourth
Sonata, from 1955, is more serious. The notes, by Dr. Marion Méndez, describe
it as the most tragic of Weinberg’s piano compositions, reflecting the composer’s
grief at losing his entire family in the Holocaust. It is certainly solemn, but
the music is never morose, and Weinberg always knows when to add rays of light
into his otherwise melancholy moods. Like the other sonatas, it is based on
simple, elegant material, although this is soon developed into more emotionally
complex areas. Yet the emotion always remains understated, especially in the
second movement (of four), where occasional piquant dissonances unsettle the
otherwise smooth flow of the melody, and in the finale, which has a more upbeat
mood, even if that is soon undermined by the sheer lightness of the textures,
at least against the more weighty music of the previous movements.
Méndez tells us
that Gilels recorded the work in 1960, but with much faster tempos. That
recording is now available as part of Melodiya’s 50-CD Emil Gilels: 100th Anniversary
Edition (1002433). Another Gilels recording
(presumably), from 1957, is available on YouTube, and it is a full five minutes
shorter than Blumina’s 30-minute reading here. By comparison, Gilels sounds
rushed, especially in the first movement, although his tempos are supple, with
plenty of restrained interludes. But Blumina’s interpretation is more
convincing, not least for the directness of expression she achieves at her more
measured tempos, as well as the clarity of texture and line. As in her previous
Weinberg releases, the audio quality here is excellent—deriving from a
co-production with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, the studio recordings made in
January 2016. These aren’t the only recordings available of Weinberg’s piano
sonatas, and as well as the Franzetti, there are also versions of Sonatas Nos. 2 and 4 from Murray Mclachlan
on Divine Art. But, as the comparison with Gilels demonstrates, there are many
ways to approach this music, and Blumina’s interpretations are convincing and
compelling throughout.
This review appears in Fanfare Magazine issue 41:5.
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