Melodiya presents a set of chamber music by Mieczysław Weinberg.

The 20th anniversary of the composer’s death was marked in 2018, while 2019 will be the year of the 100th anniversary of his birth.

For many years the figure of Weinberg remained in the powerful shadow of his friend Dmitri Shostakovich. Although Shostakovich himself thought extremely highly of Weinberg’s composing talent, the latter was thought of by some as merely an imitator. Only nowadays do contemporary audiences have the chance to comprehend the scale of this distinctive figure of 20th-century music.

Weinberg was a remarkable symphonist indeed leaving a large footprint in music theatre as well. But chamber music holds the key to discovering the genuine force of his creative gift and true understanding of his composing style. His explicitly subjective and intimate message, the naked nerve of his emotional statement is what gives the impression of the music 'written with blood of the heart', as Shostakovich said about one of Weinberg’s compositions.

'An artist’s power and impotence are about his ability or inability to express the eternal, commonly known truth, casting his own light on it', Weinberg wrote. The set features Mieczysław Weinberg’s ensemble and solo sonatas for violin, viola and cello, Quartet No.7 and Concerto for trumpet and orchestra. The performers are the composer’s contemporaries, prominent musicians of the 20th century – Alexander Brusilovsky, Fyodor Druzhinin, Alla Vasilieva, Timofei Dokschitzer, the Borodin Quartet, Rudolf Barshai and the author himself.