Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Polish National Radio Symphony, cond. Gabriel Chmura
There is no indication in the score that the four sections from the recording represent separate movements; thus, I am presenting the symphony as being in one movement. I might add timestamps later.
Mieczysław Weinberg (also Moisei or Mojsze Vainberg; 1919-1996) was a Polish-Soviet Jewish composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw, Weinberg grew up with music from an early age, as his father was a violinist at the Jewish Theatre in the city. He began formal piano lessons at the age of 12 and was accepted to the Warsaw Conservatory shortly afterward. In 1939, his life was upended when the Nazis invaded Poland, and he was forced to leave for the Soviet Union, initially settling in Belarus and studying composition at the Minsk Conservatory; tragically, his family members who remained were murdered in the Trawniki concentration camp. Weinberg was once again forced to move eastward when Minsk was invaded in 1941, his life having likely been saved by forged papers from his roommate describing him as a music teacher.
Subsequently, Weinberg, like many Soviet artistic figures, settled in Tashkent in Uzbekistan (the composer Aleksey Kozlovsky remained there after the war, writing the symphonic poem "Tanovar", which I have also uploaded, and other works inspired by Uzbek culture.) He befriended figures including the Uzbek composer Tokhtasyn Dzhalilov, the influential Soviet Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels (whose daughter he would marry), as well as Dmitri Shostakovich's former pupil Yuri Levitin and former teaching assistant Israel Finkelstein. Thanks to the latter three connections, Weinberg's scores made their way to Shostakovich, who took a strong interest in them; this eventually led him to be invited to Moscow by the Soviet Committee on the Arts.
Weinberg would go on to become a close friend of Shostakovich, whose music he had admired since his time in Minsk, and both of their works from this point would become characterized by mutual influences; the two often played each other's music, Shostakovich dedicating his tenth string quartet to him, and later on, Weinberg composed his twelfth symphony in Shostakovich's memory. When the pressure of the "anti-formalist" campaign in Soviet music and rising anti-Semitism led to both the assassination of Weinberg's father-in-law Mikhoels in 1948 and his own arrest five years later on fabricated allegations of "Jewish bourgeois nationalism", Shostakovich wrote a letter directly to Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, pleading his case. The allegations carried the death penalty, and Weinberg was ultimately saved by Stalin's death in the spring of 1953.
As Weinberg himself explained, the constant tribulations he experienced left an indelible imprint on his music, in which the destruction of war and a Shostakovich-like irony are frequently front and center, though often still painted onto a canvas of human optimism - reflecting the peace he sought amidst the turmoil of his life. Weinberg's fourteenth symphony, written in 1977 when his career was falling from its peak amid disagreements with performers and conductors, is perhaps one of his bleaker works, but nevertheless echoes with themes of his Jewish heritage and with some sublime harmonies on the very edge of functional tonality. From an orchestrational point of view, this is also some of the most fascinating brass writing I've ever heard!
Polish National Radio Symphony, cond. Gabriel Chmura
There is no indication in the score that the four sections from the recording represent separate movements; thus, I am presenting the symphony as being in one movement. I might add timestamps later.
Mieczysław Weinberg (also Moisei or Mojsze Vainberg; 1919-1996) was a Polish-Soviet Jewish composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw, Weinberg grew up with music from an early age, as his father was a violinist at the Jewish Theatre in the city. He began formal piano lessons at the age of 12 and was accepted to the Warsaw Conservatory shortly afterward. In 1939, his life was upended when the Nazis invaded Poland, and he was forced to leave for the Soviet Union, initially settling in Belarus and studying composition at the Minsk Conservatory; tragically, his family members who remained were murdered in the Trawniki concentration camp. Weinberg was once again forced to move eastward when Minsk was invaded in 1941, his life having likely been saved by forged papers from his roommate describing him as a music teacher.
Subsequently, Weinberg, like many Soviet artistic figures, settled in Tashkent in Uzbekistan (the composer Aleksey Kozlovsky remained there after the war, writing the symphonic poem "Tanovar", which I have also uploaded, and other works inspired by Uzbek culture.) He befriended figures including the Uzbek composer Tokhtasyn Dzhalilov, the influential Soviet Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels (whose daughter he would marry), as well as Dmitri Shostakovich's former pupil Yuri Levitin and former teaching assistant Israel Finkelstein. Thanks to the latter three connections, Weinberg's scores made their way to Shostakovich, who took a strong interest in them; this eventually led him to be invited to Moscow by the Soviet Committee on the Arts.
Weinberg would go on to become a close friend of Shostakovich, whose music he had admired since his time in Minsk, and both of their works from this point would become characterized by mutual influences; the two often played each other's music, Shostakovich dedicating his tenth string quartet to him, and later on, Weinberg composed his twelfth symphony in Shostakovich's memory. When the pressure of the "anti-formalist" campaign in Soviet music and rising anti-Semitism led to both the assassination of Weinberg's father-in-law Mikhoels in 1948 and his own arrest five years later on fabricated allegations of "Jewish bourgeois nationalism", Shostakovich wrote a letter directly to Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, pleading his case. The allegations carried the death penalty, and Weinberg was ultimately saved by Stalin's death in the spring of 1953.
As Weinberg himself explained, the constant tribulations he experienced left an indelible imprint on his music, in which the destruction of war and a Shostakovich-like irony are frequently front and center, though often still painted onto a canvas of human optimism - reflecting the peace he sought amidst the turmoil of his life. Weinberg's fourteenth symphony, written in 1977 when his career was falling from its peak amid disagreements with performers and conductors, is perhaps one of his bleaker works, but nevertheless echoes with themes of his Jewish heritage and with some sublime harmonies on the very edge of functional tonality. From an orchestrational point of view, this is also some of the most fascinating brass writing I've ever heard!
