Mieczysław Weinberg Essentials

Polish-Russian composer Miecyzsław Weinberg’s music evinces a staggering range of influences, eschewing the restrictive Soviet formalism that surrounded the composer in Moscow during the Stalin years. Comprising symphonies, operas, circus music, and beyond, his oeuvre is as challenging to distill as it is inventive. His defining works blend elegiac, post-Romantic chromaticism with an explicitly Eastern European melodic sensibility, recalling (and sometimes directly quoting) his mentor and friend Dmitri Shostakovich. Weinberg also composed fantasias specifically based around motifs from his homeland (Polish Melodies, Op. 47) and traditional Jewish music. Elsewhere, he pushed into unbridled atonality (Sonata No. 3 for violin) and pastiches of popular and classical styles (Suite for Orchestra).