Customer Reviews

Vainberg Vol. 15: Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4

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Mieczyslaw (né Moses) Vainberg (1919-1996) wrote many works for chamber orchestra, some called "symphony" and some called "chamber symphony." Generally these require a string band, but several specify further, coloristic, resources. The Symphony No. 7 (1964) calls for for string band and harpsichord, the Chamber Symphony No. 4 (1992) for string band and clarinet. Olympia pairs the latter with the Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1986), for strings alone. Both are played by the Umeå Symphony Orchestra under conductor Thord Svedlund. Many of Olympia's Vainberg discs reissue Soviet material from the 1970s and 80s, and some of the performances show technical imperfections; these new recordings of the two chamber symphonies, by contrast, come from 1998 and appear to have been made especially for release on the CD. Vainberg gave as one reason for commencing his cycle of "chamber symphonies" that his output of symphonies had reached No. 22, a fact which he found quantitatively immodest. The confession implies that the chamber symphonies are no less "symphonic" than their elder brethren, despite being crafted for reduced forces. The First Chamber Symphony opens with a paragraph that suggests all at once Sergei Prokofiev (the "Classical" Symphony), Benjamin Britten ("A Simple Symphony"), or even Lennox Berkeley ("Serenade for Strings"): The melodic material, for the most part playful and insouciant, constantly resists being dragged into the darker tonalities that want to absorb it. Yet, as the First Movement unfolds, Vainberg makes us aware of those "forces below." The Second Movement's sombreness stands in contrast to the First's geniality; the brief Third Movement, too, inhabits a dark world. The Fourth Movement, however, makes the journey back to the qualified joyousness of the opening Allegro. Chamber Symphony No. 4 is Vainberg's next to last work; in it, he adds the clarinet to the string band and, for the sake of four notes only, a triangle. Vainberg became a Christian in his last years and a mystical Christian, rather in the character of Alyosha Karamazov, at that. Chamber Symphony No. 4 reflects the religious yearning of the composer's new attitude. The chorale-like melody set forth in the opening bars of the initial Lento might stem from a "hymn" which Vainberg said had hovered in the back of his mind since his First Symphony (1942). Hymnody - Byzantine, Catholic, Synagogic - pervades the work, even in the ironic-rumbunctious scherzo of the Second Movement, with its echoes of Shostakovich. The Umeå players unfurl the music as though it were familiar to them, with remarkable technical polish and confidence. As in the parallel case of Shostakovich, the world of the late work of Mieczyslaw Vainberg is a remote and rarified one. Purchasers of this CD will return to it repeatedly.