http:\/\/classiqueinfo-disque#com\/Deserts-et-Oasis-pour-voix-mediane#html?lang=fr<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/b><\/p>\n
Glarean Magazin
\n<\/b>26.07.2010<\/p>\n
Die Grenzen der Viola musikalisch ausgelotet<\/b><\/p>\n
Mieczyslaw Weinberg, russischer Komponist polnischer Abstammung, erlebt in diesem Sommer durchaus einen kleinen Boom. Die Bregenzer Festspiele (21. Juli bis 22. August) widmen ihm einen programmatischen Schwerpunkt: mit einem Symposium mit Vortr\u00e4gen und Diskussionen zu Weinbergs kompositorischem Schaffen, vor allem aber mit der Auff\u00fchrung einer Reihe von Werken: seine Opern \u00abDie Passagierin\u00bb und \u00abDas Portr\u00e4t\u00bb, Konzerte mit Orchesterwerken, Kammermusik u.v.m.<\/p>\n
Weinberg wurde 1919 in Warschau geboren und studierte dort zun\u00e4chst Klavier, bevor er 1939 in die damalige Sowjetunion \u00fcbersiedelte. Er studierte bis 1941 weiter am Konservatorium in Minsk, wirkte ab 1943 als freischaffender Komponist und Pianist. Er lebte in Moskau und geh\u00f6rte zu den engen Freunden Dmitri Schostakowitschs.
\n1953 wurde Weinberg, der Jude war, beschuldigt, auf der Halbinsel Krim die Gr\u00fcndung einer j\u00fcdischen Republik propagiert zu haben. Die Beschuldigung war jedoch vollkommen unberechtigt, Schostakowitsch setzte sich erfolgreich f\u00fcr Weinbergs Freilassung aus der Haft ein. Das ist nur ein Beispiel f\u00fcr ein insgesamt von schweren Belastungen gepr\u00e4gtes Leben, dem Weinberg gleichwohl eine F\u00fclle von Werken abrang. \u00dcber 20 Symphonien, sechs Opern, eine Reihe von kammermusikalischen Werken f\u00fcr die verschiedensten Genres, Filmmusik u.v.m. schuf er.<\/p>\n
Dem Kammermusiker Weinberg widmet sich die Bratschistin Julia Rebekka Adler mit ihrer j\u00fcngsten Doppel-CD. In deren Zentrum stehen die vier Sonaten f\u00fcr Viola solo, daneben die Bearbeitung einer Sonate f\u00fcr Klarinette und Klavier sowie eine weitere Solosonate aus der Feder Fyodor Druzhinins.<\/p>\n
Den Anfang macht die Sonate op. 28. Sie stammt aus dem Jahr 1945 und ist im Original f\u00fcr Klarinette und Klavier geschrieben. Der erste Satz erinnert unweigerlich an den musikalischen Stil der gro\u00dfen russischen Komponisten der Zeit \u2013 Weinbergs enge private Verbindung zu Schostakowitsch d\u00fcrfte hier auch ihre musikalischen Spuren hinterlassen haben. Ebenso sind in den folgenden S\u00e4tzen aber Ankl\u00e4nge an russische und j\u00fcdische Folklore zu vernehmen, die in einer ebenso dichten pers\u00f6nlichen Beziehung zum Komponisten stehen. Somit ist die Sonate sicher ein probates Beispiel f\u00fcr Weinbergs individuellen Stil, den Julia Rebekka Adler durch einen vollen, warmen, manchmal auch schweren und schwerm\u00fctigen Viola-Ton mit gro\u00dfer Klarheit zum Ausdruck bringt, Jascha Nemtsow begleitet sie dabei ebenso dezent wie kongenial am Klavier.<\/p>\n
Die Solosonaten f\u00fcr Viola geben Adler beste M\u00f6glichkeiten, das so oft im Schatten der Violine stehende und missbilligte Instrument von ganz neuen Seiten zu zeigen. Die erste, op. 107, stammt aus dem Jahr 1971 und ist Fyodor Druzhinin gewidmet.<\/p>\n
Diese Sonate ist die einzige bislang ver\u00f6ffentlichte. Die Sonate Nr. 2 (op. 123) von 1978 ist dem damaligen Bratscher des Borodin-Quartetts zugedacht, die dritte (op. 135) und vierte (op. 136) von 1985 bzw. 1986 dem zu der Zeit amtierenden Solobratscher des sowjetischen Staatsorchesters. Diese sehr pers\u00f6nlichen Widmungen erkl\u00e4ren einerseits die Wahl der Solosonate \u2013 so war kein Begleiter n\u00f6tig \u2013 andererseits aber auch die ausgebliebene Verbreitung dieser ohnehin sehr speziellen Musik.<\/p>\n
Alle vier Sonaten vereint ein ebenso unterschiedlicher wie Extreme einfordernder Anspruch an die spieltechnischen Fertigkeiten des Bratschers. Auch wenn Weinbergs mitunter sehr d\u00fcstere und melancholische Tonsprache einen solchen Begriff fast zu verbieten scheint, sind die Sonaten in ihrem Anspruch wahre Virtuosenmusik. Keine \u00e4u\u00dfere Virtuosit\u00e4t wird hier ausgestellt, sondern eine ganz verinnerlichte, konzentriert auf ein perfektes Beherrschen des Instruments. Auch und gerade in dieser Hinsicht beglaubigt Julia Rebekka Adler ihr ambitioniertes Projekt, sich diesen nahezu in Vergessenheit geratenen Werken anzunehmen.<\/p>\n
Ebenfalls auf der Doppel-CD eingespielt ist die Sonate f\u00fcr Viola solo des russischen Komponisten und Bratschisten Fyodor Druzhinin (H\u00f6rbeispiel auf Youtube), geboren 1932 in Moskau. Ab 1944 studierte er Viola an der Musikschule des Moskauer Konservatoriums, ab 1950 am Konservatorium bei Wadim Borissowski, dessen Platz im Beethoven-Streichquartett er 1964 einnahm. Sp\u00e4ter unterrichtete er selbst am Moskauer Konservatorium, dessen Viola-Abteilung er ab 1980 leitete.
\nDruzhinin ist Widmungstr\u00e4ger bedeutender Werke f\u00fcr Viola, u.a. Alfred Schnittkes, Grigori Frids und der Sonate f\u00fcr Viola Op. 147 von Dmitri Schostakowitsch, dessen letzte Komposition, die Druzhinin auch uraufgef\u00fchrt hat. Neben seiner eigenen p\u00e4dagogischen T\u00e4tigkeit komponierte er mehrere Werke f\u00fcr Viola.<\/p>\n
Wahrscheinlich hat Weinberg Druzhinins Sonate f\u00fcr Viola solo gekannt, sie stammt aus dem Jahr 1959 und ist somit einige Jahre vor der Sonate entstanden, die Weinberg dem Bratscher und Komponisten widmete. Was jedenfalls den Grad an Komplexit\u00e4t und Anspruch an den Musiker angeht, steht Druzhinins Sonate den Werken Weinberg in nichts nach, der leidenschaftliche und versierte Bratscher, der Druzhinin Zeit seines Lebens war, klingt da mit jeder Note durch \u2013 und wird ebenso von Julia Rebekka Adler umgesetzt.<\/p>\n
Fazit:<\/b><\/p>\n
Die Einspielung dieser Weinbergschen Viola-Werke durch Julia Rebekka Adler ist eine warme Empfehlung f\u00fcr ausgesprochen interessierte Freunde der Bratsche, die hier durch eine vorz\u00fcgliche Interpretation ein Dokument an die Hand bekommen, wie weit die Grenzen dieses Instruments verlaufen k\u00f6nnen.<\/p>\n
Die Aufnahme ist genau zum richtigen Zeitpunkt entstanden, r\u00fcckt Weinberg derzeit nicht zuletzt durch Veranstaltungen an so prominenten Orten wie Bregenz verst\u00e4rkt ins Bewusstsein der \u00d6ffentlichkeit. Gleichwohl bleibt die Einspielung vor allem eine warme Empfehlung f\u00fcr ausgesprochen interessierte Freunde der Viola, die hier durch eine vorz\u00fcgliche Interpretation ein eindrucksvolles Dokument an die Hand bekommen, wie weit die Grenzen dieses Instruments verlaufen k\u00f6nnen. \u25a0<\/p>\n
Christian Sch\u00fctte<\/p>\n
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\n01.07.2010<\/p>\n
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Tom R. Schulz<\/p>\n
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\n06\/2010<\/p>\n
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\n06\/2010<\/p>\n
Through Labor and Love: Weinberg, War and Persecution<\/b><\/p>\n
An article about violist Julia Rebekka Adler could easily, rewardingly turn into an article on Mieczys\u0142aw Weinberg instead. For one, it is Weinberg to whom she has pinned her hat, whose viola sonatas she has now torn from obscurity into the (narrowly focused) spot-light of well-regarded niche repertoire, and to whose music she very obviously responds. Further, she is genuinely diffident and prefers to talk just about anything, but herself. And even her engaging husband and de-facto manager Thure (an immunologist at the National Research Center for Environment and Health during daylight hours), who is supposed to make up for his wife\u2019s self-effacing reluctance, feels so passionately about Weinberg\u2019s music\u2014and music in general\u2014that he can\u2019t praise her achievements at the exclusion of others\u2019, or without getting side-tracked by his excitement for this or that composition or musical discovery. Thank goodness\u2014because there is nothing more tedious than having to sit through the professionally deluded, tunnel-visioned ravings of a mother-manager, parent-publicist, or spousal spinmeister.<\/p>\n
Happily I don\u2019t even have to do the raving about her Weinberg CD\u2014although I absolutely adore it\u2014because Jerry Dubins has already done that for me in his review in the May\/June issue. He also repeats, with hyperbolic enthusiasm, the basic information on Weinberg and the press-kit ready quotes (if she had one) about Mme. Adler. Including very kind ones from Hartmut Rhode, her onetime teacher. She\u2019s won lots of competitions, of course, and has studied with Kim Kashkashian and Yuri Bashmet. But what does that count for, if you are only a violist? She\u2019s the assistant concert master of the Munich Philharmonic and that seals her reputation. Being an orchestra violist must necessarily\u2014?\u2014define the way audiences, critics, colleagues look at her and her playing. After all, back-benching in an orchestra, even if it is in the \u2018assistant solo viola\u2019 position, is the \u2018safe way out\u2019 for those who don\u2019t dare strive for more. For those who think good is \u2018good enough\u2019. For those who prefer the comfort of a 9-5 job (unfirable, at that) over the adventure that is music.<\/p>\n
Little of that is actually true in the case of Julia Rebekka Adler, but such convenient stereotypes\u2014all of them exist for a reason\u2014can only be overcome by better getting to know the person behind the symbolism of position, instrument, and career. Julia Mai, then still performing under her maiden name, was into competitions, and successfully. But eventually she saw herself faced with the choice between the alluring opportunity of the job at the Munich Philharmonic or taking out substantial loans to be able to afford to play in yet another competition and hope for the breakthrough. Sensibility won out and she took the Munich job. And why should taking an orchestra be a dead-end, anyway? If the likes of Sabine Mayer or Emanuel Pahud can emerge from their respective orchestra positions as successful musicians, why not she?<\/p>\n
The first thing she noticed after joining the orchestra was the considerable challenge that playing in an orchestra presented. \u201cYou enter an orchestra with a few successful competitions on your record and ambitions of being a soloist not yet quite laid to rest and, inevitably, you look just a little down your nose on orchestra duty. And once you\u2019re in it you realize the hard work and skill that is involved in playing in an orchestra, and how different it is from playing Hoffmeister and Stamitz concertos\u201d she recalled her acclimation phase. Now no longer a member of the successful Berlin-based Kuss Quartett, where the atmosphere of music-making didn\u2019t appeal to her, she was \u2018only\u2019 a \u201cco-principal violist\u201d and busy trying to adapt.
\nBut even though not all colleagues in an orchestra look kindly on one of their own having ambitions for more (researching music, unearthing lost masterpieces, recording them and releasing an album are regularly met with incomprehension or silent accusations of \u2018who do you think you are?\u2019), young Mme.<\/p>\n
Adler\u2019s inner musical flame was, and is, still licking. She found a grateful outlet in the music of Mieczys\u0142aw Weinberg whom she was once asked to perform with pianist Elizabeth Blumina, who insisted on playing something\u2014anything\u2014by the composer together with Mme. Adler.\u00a0 The latter dug up the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano op.28 and figured, \u201cif Brahms can do it [op.120], so can I\u201d, and adapted it for her instrument. The result works perfectly and being the most approachable of the included pieces, it rightly opens her Weinberg album. (On the disc Adler performs the sonata with the wonderful Jascha Nemtsov, a Weinberg expert himself who has recorded violin sonatas for H\u00e4nssler, reviewed in 31:2.) Once the Weinberg-bug bit, Adler was hooked and set out to see if there wasn\u2019t more that he had (actually) written for her instrument.
\nWeinberg, who has a Want-List entry for every review in Fanfare Magazine, is a great composer to sink your teeth into and get some career-recognition, because he\u2019s the real deal. He is not a washed-up Shostakovich wannabe, which had been the much repeated, rarely reflected, opinion trotted out by the few who were even familiar with his name.<\/p>\n
His music has genuine bite, authentic darkness, relentlessness, bitterness, and\u2014to lighten the mood\u2014anger. His writing for the viola isn\u2019t particularly idiomatic, and while the virtuoso showboat sonata of Fyodor Druzhinin (slotted in between the Weinberg sonatas) sounds twice as difficult, it is Weinberg who is much more challenging to play. \u201cEither he wasn\u2019t very familiar with the instrument\u201d suggests the Adler, \u201cor maybe he just didn\u2019t care. What did Beethoven say about his concerto: \u2018what do I care for your fiddle when the spirit is speaking to me\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting at around the table in the still barren apartment the Adlers just moved in, we talk about subjects completely unrelated to music\u2014for example exotic fine teas that Mr. Adler cherishes with the same enthusiasm he does unjustly neglected composers or \u201creal tango\u201d. Mrs. Adler crinkles her nose at one of the more eccentric types of Korean green tea, suggesting, heretically, that it tastes like dishwater\u2014and makes a cup of coffee for herself. Their daughter Lilith, who just turned one, roams about between the chairs, beneath the table, and takes turns sitting on our laps, smiling at anything in sight. It is her who brings the topic back to Weinberg because the whole Weinberg chapter in Mme. Adler\u2019s life\u2014from finding the manuscripts of the sonatas, typing them into Sibelius (the score publishing and composing software), practicing, performing, to eventually recording them\u2014is tied in with her pregnancy.<\/p>\n
When you hear Weinberg\u2019s forcefully dark music, making some Shostakovich sound like merry-go-round ditties, the contrast becomes striking. Julia Adler herself would offer plenty contrast: A delicate (but not dainty) pale redhead, barely thirty, with an intriguing combination of seriousness and maturity and a streak of girlishness retained, she doesn\u2019t at all conform to what you might imagine a natural fit to tear violently through those solo sonatas for viola. Now add her pregnancy, and the contrast is almost provocative. \u201cI\u2019ve never liked these clich\u00e9s about pregnancy\u201d, Adler admits and needles (because she is incapable of truly ranting) against \u2018the silly romantic ideals and the kitsch about pregnancy going hand in hand with little flowers, white chiffon, and strawberry ice cream.\u2019 If she were describing Simone Dinnerstein\u2019s Goldberg Variations (she isn\u2019t), she couldn\u2019t have found better words. And while the New York pianist was stage-managing her pregnancy-Bach with Hollywoodesque perfection, Adler performed\u2014in her second trimester\u2014a Weinberg recital titled \u201cThe Horror of War and Persecution\u201d to a room of uncomfortably scandalized listeners who could not get the visual in sync with what they were hearing. Weinberg would be, our prejudice tells us, \u2018anti-pregnancy music\u2019. It seemed to have worked well for little Lilith, though\u2014as sunny a one year old as can be, and busily flirting with the visiting journalist.<\/p>\n
Tommy Persson, a long time friend of Weinberg, responded to the CD with much praise, culminating in \u201cI\u2019m simply overwhelmed by [her] very brilliant playing and great understanding of Weinberg\u2019s music\u2026 a most important contribution to the growing Weinberg discography.\u201d He would know better about the relative merit amid the finally burgeoning Weinberg discography than I do. But he certainly is right about her performance. It is world class, and nothing less. How would the response to this disc differ if Bashmet or Kashkashian had recorded this, and not a \u2018Co-principal violist\u2019? asks Thure. He has a point: the CD has gotten much praise, but several critics seemed to be hiding behind admiration for Weinberg and merely acknowledge the soloist. They can\u2019t know, of course, for lack of extant scores, how much of the result is interpretation and how much of the Klezmeresque inflection here, or the dynamic nuances there, are Adler\u2019s work as a performer. Though they could have heard that the playing is not just adequate but phenomenal.<\/p>\n
I have heard many great (or at least famous) violists of our time live\u2014the two aforementioned, Pinchas Zuckerman, Roger Tapping, Lawrence Dutton, Antoine Tamestit… I\u2019ve also sat in, suffered through, and occasionally savored, several dozen up-and-coming violists at the 2008 ARD competition (where, in 2004, Adler made it into the semis). What Adler elicits from her instrument is playing at a most rarified level. Maybe I\u2019ve heard similar such intensity and accuracy from Tamestit and Kashkashian before, but no one else I can remember. About a lackluster Dutton recital I once wrote: \u201cMozart\u2019s favorite instrument has problems to overcome. Where the cello yearns, the viola sounds like a cicada in love. Where the violin sings, the viola imitates an 80-year old mezzo soprano. Where violin or cello lament, the viola whines. There are, of course, players who can make me eat my words\u2026\u201d
\nJulia Rebekka Adler is one of them.<\/p>\n
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\n19.05.2010<\/p>\n
Da wird gerade ein Komponist posthum entdeckt: Das Schostakowitsch-Jahr 2006 brachte Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919\u20132006), dem polnischen Juden in Moskau, als Komponistenfreund erste Aufmerksamkeit; Bregenz zeigt heuer seine Auschwitz-Oper \u201eDie Passagierin\u201c; nun legt die deutsche Bratschistin Julia Rebekka Adler vier Solo-Sonaten (1978\u20131983) und eine fr\u00fche Sonate mit Klavier vor: hoch emotionale, dunkel get\u00f6nte, wie aus der Zeit gefallene Musik, deren virtuose Anforderungen Adler mit Bravour vergessen macht.<\/p>\n
Carsten Fastner<\/p>\n
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\n04\/2010<\/p>\n
Et\u00fcden des Ichs<\/b><\/p>\n
Was hat der Viola urpl\u00f6tzlich solche Konjunktur gebracht? Trieb die Flut von Geigenvirtuosen das Publikum auf herbere H\u00f6r-Pfade; spiegelt die Mittellage oberhalb des Cellos gar den Wankelmut des Zeitgeistes? Da Spekulationen ins Beliebige f\u00fchren, hilft nur Entdeckerlust: Wenn Lawrence Power, 32, sich \u00fcber die Sonaten f\u00fcr Solo-Viola von Paul Hindemith hermacht, blickt man tief ins Labor der Moderne, wo Formsinn und Melodiescheu miteinander ringen. Hindemith, selbst Bratscher, testete an diesen Meditationen zwischen 1919 und 1937 offenbar r\u00fcckhaltlos die eigenen Klangzweifel – ohne einen Ausweg zu entdecken. Den erarbeitete sich sein Kollege Mieczys aw Weinberg in Moskau, im letzten Drittel eines Lebens fern allem Ruhm. Mit seinen einsamen Saiten-Ges\u00e4ngen fand Weinberg (1919 bis 1996) zu \u00e4hnlicher Expressivit\u00e4t, wie sie sein Vorbild und F\u00f6rderer Dmitrij Schostakowitsch in den intensivsten Werken erreichte. Jetzt hat die junge Violistin Julia Rebekka Adler die bewegenden Et\u00fcden des Ichs musterg\u00fcltig aufgenommen.Violist Power: Tiefer Blick ins Labor<\/p>\n
JOHANNES SALTZWEDEL<\/p>\n
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\n24.03.2010<\/p>\n
Norman Lebrecht’s CD of the Week – 24 March<\/b><\/p>\n
Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Sonatas for viola solo (Neos\/BR Klassik) ****<\/p>\n
There is not a lot of modern music for solo viola that you\u2019d want to hear twice. Start with four dust-dry Hindemith sonatas and move on through Honegger, Krenek, Ligeti, beyond. Like a philosopher at a rave, the viola struggles to assert its character and offer engaging conversation.<\/p>\n
Mieczyslaw Weinberg does not seem to recognise these limitations. The composer closest to Shostakovich, Weinberg (1919-1996) arrived in the Soviet Union in 1939 as a refugee from Nazi-occupied Poland, only to be imprisoned under Stalin\u2019s terror. Like Shostakovich, he found ways of conveying reality without getting arrested again. In the four viola sonatas, written between 1971 and 1983, he streaks gloom with ribald irony and Jewish melody, most emphatically in the fourth and last. Weinberg must have been aware that Shostakovich\u2019s deathbed work was also for viola and there are hints of valediction in this eloquent last piece. Julia Rebekka Adler, co-principal viola of the Munich Philharmonic, is all fire and ice \u2013 technically precise yet blazing with conviction in works and instrument alike. Introspective in the four solo sonatas, she saves her best for a 1945 clarinet sonata, transcribed for viola and piano, lamenting the Holocaust in Chassidic melodies with wry, self-knowing twists. More than just works of music, these are fragments of modern history, submitted in evidence.<\/p>\n
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\n03\/2010<\/p>\n
Complete Sonatas for Viola Solo – Julia Rebekka Adler (Viola) – Jascha Nemtsov (Piano)<\/b><\/p>\n
Despite remaining on the fringe of musical and social activities for most of his life, Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) managed to compose 20 symphonies, 17 string quartets, 7 operas, concertos for cello, flute, clarinet, trumpet and violin, and many other chamber works. When the war started he fled his native Warsaw and escaped to the Soviet Union where he eventually became a close friend of Dmitri Shostakovich. Both composers influenced each other’s outlook and writing. Somewhat bearing the same dark overtones as most of Shostakovich’s output, Weinberg’s music generally exudes a gentler, sunnier disposition.<\/p>\n
This CD opens with the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 28 from 1945, in a version for Viola and Piano, and is a rather straightforward and uncomplicated work from a composer in his twenties, exposing his Jewish roots and already demonstrating a solid grasp of writing techniques. The other pieces on this recording, the four Sonatas for Viola Solo, all composed around 35 to 40 years later, are a different story. They should be titled ‚Viola Etudes‘ instead of Sonatas, as each and every movement seems to present the player with a different challenge, both technical and emotional, all wrapped up in a musical discourse much more complex than a solo instrument might impart. Julia Rebekka Adler has taken it upon herself, in these world premi\u00e8re recordings, to face these challenges head on. Her playing displays a mastery of the instrument that helps her tackle any hazardous moments with ease, and therefore she can focus her attention on the emotionally demanding content within the music. This is definitely not child’s play for both the listener and the player, but when performed with intensity and commitment by a violist like Julia Rebekka Adler, the musical benefits eclipse the demands.<\/p>\n
As an added bonus, and I believe also a world premi\u00e8re recording, this CD also contains the Sonata for Viola Solo by Fyodor Druzhinin (1932-2007). He was a member of the Beethoven Quartet and the Viola Sonata op. 147 by Shostakovich was dedicated to him. This work of his is so well written, that having not bothered to look at the index when I first listened to this CD, I assumed that I was in fact listening to one of the Weinberg sonatas. I strongly recommend this recording to any student of the viola. It clearly demonstrates all the musical and technical qualities of the instrument. I also recommend it to any fans of music from that geo-political place and time. It will open your mind to other facets of these devoted composers.<\/p>\n
Jean-Yves Duperron<\/p>\n
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\n18.03.2010<\/p>\n
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\n10.03.2010<\/p>\n
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\n04\/2010<\/p>\n
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\n15.03.2010<\/p>\n
Packende Einspielung<\/b><\/p>\n
Interpretation:\u00a0![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neos-music.com\/images\/news\/stars5.gif?ssl=1\")
\nKlangqualit\u00e4t:\u00a0
\nRepertoirewert:\u00a0
\nBooklet:\u00a0![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/neos-music.com\/images\/news\/stars4.gif?ssl=1\")
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Es gibt sie, die anspruchsvolle und fesselnde Literatur f\u00fcr solistische Streichinstrumente jenseits der ausgetretenen Pfade. Wer es nicht glaubt, sollte sich vorliegende, bei NEOS ver\u00f6ffentlichte Doppel-CD mit Kompositionen von Mieczys\u0142aw Weinberg (1919-1996) zu Gem\u00fcte f\u00fchren. Eine Aufforderung zum Staunen ist es, was die Bratschistin Julia Rebekka Adler hier musikalisch vorlegt: Schwerpunkt sind die vier Sonaten f\u00fcr Viola solo \u2013 Nr. 1 op. 107 (1971), Nr. 2 op. 123 (1978), Nr. 3 op. 135 (1982) und Nr. 4 op. 136 (1983) \u2013, die noch weitgehend unbetretenes Neuland markieren. Damit wird unterstrichen, was Kennern schon seit einiger Zeit klar ist: dass sich der Russe Weinberg im zweiten Jahrzehnt nach seinem Tod als Fundgrube f\u00fcr die Kulturindustrie entpuppt \u2013 ein Umstand, der sich nicht nur in den hochwertigen Produktionen von Werken wie einzelnen Violinsonaten (mit Kolja Blacher und Jascha Nemtsov, H\u00e4nnsler Classic, 2007; mit Stefan und Andreas Kirpal, cpo 2007) oder den Streichquartetten (mit dem Quatuor Daniel, cpo: drei CDs seit 2006), sondern auch in der f\u00fcr Juli dieses Jahres angesetzten szenischen Urauff\u00fchrung von Weinbergs Auschwitz-Oper ‚Die Passagierin‘ (1967\/68) bei den Bregenzer Festspielen abzeichnet.<\/p>\n
Weinbergs Solosonaten<\/b><\/p>\n
Als Bratschistin geh\u00f6rt Adler zur selbstbewussten Generation jener jungen Musikerinnen und Musiker, die \u2013 wie in j\u00fcngster Zeit beispielsweise Antoine Tamestit und Nils M\u00f6nkemeyer \u2013 dazu in der Lage sind, ihr Instrument wirklich ins Licht der \u00f6ffentlichen Aufmerksamkeit zu r\u00fccken, indem sie ihr K\u00f6nnen mit der Pr\u00e4sentation neuer und unverbrauchte Literatur unterstreichen. Weinbergs Solosonaten kommen diesem neu erwachten Selbstbewusstsein entgegen und finden in Adler eine fulminante Interpretetin: Die Bratschistin geht mit einem H\u00f6chstma\u00df an Subtilit\u00e4t an die Realisierung der komplexen Partituren heran und umspannt dabei weite Ausdrucksbereiche: Ihr Vortrag pendelt zwischen Sprachn\u00e4he und Gesang (so im zweiten Satz aus op. 107 und im dritten Satz von op. 123), mutet stellenweise wie ein zartes Betasten musikalischer Strukturen an, das sich sanft in hohe Registerlagen aufschwingt, bricht sich andererseits aber auch \u2013 so in dem mit extremen Anforderungen vollgepackten Finalsatz von op. 107 \u2013 in wild aus dem Instrument herausgemei\u00dfelten Klangeruptionen Bahn.<\/p>\n
Bei all dem gelingt es Adler, die enorme Emotionalit\u00e4t von Weinbergs Musik zu vermitteln, ohne sie indes \u00fcberm\u00e4\u00dfig zu strapazieren. Ihr Vortrag fesselt gerade, weil er auch Verwerfungen in der Musik aufzudecken versteht und die Wechsel zwischen den verschiedenen Spannungszust\u00e4nden deutlich macht. Wie flexibel die Bratschistin dabei verf\u00e4hrt, zeigt der Blick auf die Solosonate op. 135, wo sie im Kopfsatz die leise gesponnenen Passagen zwischen zur\u00fcckhaltende Piano-Flageoletts und gesch\u00e4rftes Spiel am Steg lagert, im zweiten Satz dagegen zwischen gestischen Komponenten, schw\u00e4rmerischem Spiel und klanglicher Distanz wechselt. Bestechend ist die Sorgfalt, mit der sie dies leistet und dabei \u2013 wie besonders gut in op. 136 vernehmbar \u2013 die melodischen Aufbauten sehr plastisch modelliert sowie die Musik mit weitr\u00e4umigen Steigerungen versieht. Dies alles ist klanglich hautnah mitzuerleben, aufnahmetechnisch im h\u00f6chsten Grad von Pr\u00e4senz eingefangen und mit einem leichten Nachhall versehen, der sich f\u00fcr die Wiedergabe dieser Kompositionen als gute Wahl erweist.<\/p>\n
Weitere Werke<\/b><\/p>\n
Die Fokussierung auf die Solosonaten wird durch zwei zus\u00e4tzliche Werke durchbrochen, was die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung umso spannender macht: Zum einen ist da die 1959 entstandene Solosonate von Fjodor Druschinin (1932-2007), die, fast als Gegenentwurf zu den Werken seines Landsmannes, immer wieder Momente von klassizistischer Strenge aufblitzen l\u00e4sst und die Interpretin gleichfalls durch st\u00e4ndige musikalische Umschw\u00fcnge fordert. Zum anderen ist da Weinbergs Sonate f\u00fcr Klarinette und Klavier op. 28 (1945), die in einer Viola-Adaption erklingt. Angesichts der perfekten instrumentalen Balance ist kaum zu glauben, dass die Version f\u00fcr Streichinstrument \u2013 deren Urheber \u00fcbrigens in Trackliste und Booklet verschwiegen wird \u2013 keine Originalkonzeption ist. Gemeinsam mit Jascha Nemtsov am Klavier findet Adler hier zu einem weiteren H\u00f6hepunkt der Produktion: Wie die Bratschistin zu Beginn des Kopfsatzes atmet, ihr Solo kurz stocken l\u00e4sst, fast jeden Ton dynamisch wie klanglich anders einf\u00e4rbt und dann, zum bed\u00e4chtigen, die B\u00e4sse hintupfenden Spiel ihres Partners den Gesang entfaltet, ist wirklich gro\u00dfartig.<\/p>\n
Auch hier erweist sich Weinbergs Musik wieder als Sammelbecken emotionaler Situationen, die \u00fcber ein weites Ausdrucksspektrum vom einfachen Gesang bis hin zur klanglichen Zuspitzung des Ausdrucks mitgeteilt werden. Eine dieser Situationen ist das Klagelied, das \u2013 als Reminiszenz an Weinbergs j\u00fcdische Herkunft und deren folkloristische Traditionen samt ihrer Intonationsgewohnheiten \u2013 in der Mitte des zweiten Satzes erklingt und dort einen Ersch\u00f6pfungszustand markiert, der von den Interpreten bis zum \u00e4u\u00dfersten ausgesch\u00f6pft wirkt. Fesselnd wirkt das, wie auch der Beginn des finalen Adagio-Satzes, dessen ausgedehnte Klavier-Einleitung zun\u00e4chst von einer Solopassage der Bratsche beantwortet wird, den H\u00f6rer mitzurei\u00dfen und zu elektrisieren versteht \u2013 eine erstaunliche Musik in einer faszinierenden Umsetzung. Das Booklet weist zwar nur einen dreiseitigen, aber dennoch sehr gut in Weinbergs Schaffen einf\u00fchrenden Text auf und gl\u00e4nzt zudem durch zahlreiche Abbildungen von \u2013 teils handschriftlichen \u2013 Partiturseiten, die einen erg\u00e4nzenden Einblick in das Notenbild der eingespielten Werke erh\u00e4lt.<\/p>\n
Dr. Stefan Drees<\/i><\/p>\n
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\n01.03.2010<\/p>\n
M. Weinberg \u2022 F. Druzhinin\u00a0– Julia Rebekka Adler \u2022 Jascha Nemtsov<\/b><\/p>\n
Der 1919 in Warschau geborene Mieczysaw Weinberg fl\u00fcchtete 1939 vor den anr\u00fcckenden Nazi-Truppen in die Sowjetunion, wo ein Grenzbeamter ihm wegen seiner j\u00fcdischen Herkunft den \u201elandes\u00fcblichen“ j\u00fcdischen Namen Moisej (= Moses) verpa\u00dfte, dazu die russische Schreibung Vajnberg; der Komponist fl\u00fcchtete nach dem \u00dcberfall Deutschlands auf die Sowjetunion von Minsk nach Taschkent und lie\u00df sich sp\u00e4ter in Moskau nieder, wo Schostakowitsch sein F\u00f6rderer und Freund wurde.<\/p>\n
Dort verbrachte Weinberg auch den Rest seines Lebens und starb 1996. Er war ein durchaus anerkannter Komponist, obwohl er sich von allzu gro\u00dfer Systemn\u00e4he fernhielt. Im Westen entdeckt man Weinberg erst seit wenigen Jahren und mit ihm einen Musiker, der nicht nur au\u00dferordentlich fruchtbar war, sondern auch stilistisch eine merkbare Eigenst\u00e4ndigkeit entwickelte und bewahrte, trotz einer gewissen auch h\u00f6rbaren N\u00e4he zu Schostakowitsch.<\/p>\n
Dass jemand gleich vier Solosonaten f\u00fcr die Bratsche schrieb, d\u00fcrfte in der Musikgeschichte kaum Parallelen haben; erstaunlicherweise sind alle vier Werke originell, haben einen eigenen \u201eTon“ und spannungsreiche Verl\u00e4ufe. Hier gibt es f\u00fcr die in ihrem Repertoire nicht gerade auf Rosen gebetteten Bratscher einiges zu entdecken. Dazu auch die Klarinettensonate op. 28, die sich im Anschlu\u00df an Brahms‘ op. 120 leicht als Bratschensonate interpretieren l\u00e4\u00dft. Schlie\u00dflich gibt es als quasi Zugabe auch noch eine Solosonate von F\u00ebdor Druinin (Fyodor Druzhinin), den einstigen Bratscher des Moskauer Beethoven-Quartetts. Er lebte von 1932 bis 2007 und hat mehrere Werke unter Beteiligung der Viola verfa\u00dft, die, nach seiner sehr ansprechenden Solosonate zu schlie\u00dfen, ebenfalls entdeckt zu werden verdienen.<\/p>\n
Die Interpretin Julia Rebekka Adler zeigt durchweg einen vollmundigen, warmen Ton, besonders im sonoren tiefen Register, technische Abgekl\u00e4rtheit und umsichtig gliederndes Formbewu\u00dftsein. Pianist Jascha Nemtsov (in op. 28) widmet sich mit Sorgfalt einem Repertoire, an dessen (Wieder-)Entdeckung er als Forscher ma\u00dfgeblich beteiligt ist. Was diese musikalisch wertvolle Edition geringf\u00fcgig beeintr\u00e4chtigt, ist einmal das Fehlen jeglicher Satzbezeichnungen bei Weinbergs Sonaten Nr. 2-4, des Weiteren der Verzicht auf eingehendere Kommentare zu den einzelnen Werken. Es ist schlie\u00dflich keine Musik, die man stumpfsinnig als Hintergrund zum Zeitunglesen abspult. Weinberg ist interessant genug, sich eingehend auf seine Musik einzulassen.<\/p>\n
Hartmut L\u00fcck<\/p>\n
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\n30.01.2010<\/p>\n
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\n02\/2010<\/p>\n
WEINBERG\/KEEPSAKE OF MODERN AGE<\/p>\n
Julia Rebekka Adler has been playing viola since she was barely big enough to manage an instrument of its size. Born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1978, she studied with Kim Kashkashian, Johannes L\u00fcthy, and Wolfram Christ at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, went on to take master classes with Walter Levin and Yuri Bashment, and completed her training with Hartmut Rohde at the Universit\u00e4t der K\u00fcnste Berlin. Having won numerous prizes, Adler is today counted among the top viola players on the scene, holding posts in the Munich Philharmonic, the Viardot Piano Quartet, and Berlin\u2019s Solistenoktett. Her recordings thus far are few, and, but with one exception, a Hoffmeister concerto, devoted to 20th-century composers.<\/p>\n
As the first of the two above headnotes would suggest, Adler has taken a special interest in Mieczys\u0142aw Weinberg (1919\u20131996), whose name may also be found in alternate spellings as Moisey Vainberg and Moisey Samuilovich Vaynberg. Of Polish-Jewish origin, Weinberg, who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, escaped to the Soviet Union\/Russia in 1939, remaining there until his death. He is considered by some to be the third great Soviet composer after Prokofiev and Shostakovich, but others have criticized his work as derivative and damaging, not only to his own reputation but to that of Shostakovich, of whose music Weinberg\u2019s can be uncomfortably imitative. Alexander Ivashkin, cellist and Chair of Performance Studies and Director of the Centre for Russian Music and London\u2019s Goldsmiths University, slammed Weinberg, charging that \u201chis works only served to kill off Shostakovich\u2019s music, to cover it over with a scab of numerous and bad copies.\u201d And Thure Adler, Julia\u2019s husband and unofficial manager, in referring to Weinberg\u2019s viola sonatas, admitted that they \u201cdo not qualify as easy listening.\u201d But others, including Hartmut Rohde, called Julia\u2019s recordings \u201ca once-in-a-hundred-year\u2019s event for the world of the viola;\u201d and Andreas Reiner, professor of violin and first chair of the Rosamunde Quartet called the recordings \u201ca musical mighty deed.\u201d\u00a0 In the end, with whichever side one chooses to make camp, the large body of Weinberg\u2019s work, which includes 22 symphonies and 17 string quartets, cannot be ignored; and indeed it hasn\u2019t been by a number of companies that have recorded many of his works. If you are a regular visitor to archivemusic.com, you will find Weinberg listed under Vainberg.<\/p>\n
The 1945 Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, played here in transcription for viola, is a fairly early work by the 26-year-old composer, and is, of the works recorded on these discs, the most clearly imitative of Shostakovich, as well as the most easily assimilated by the ear on a first hearing. As many years as the composer had been alive in 1945 would pass before he wrote his first sonata for viola solo in 1971. The three additional solo sonatas would follow in 1978, 1982 and 1983, and are among his later to late works.<\/p>\n
As with all such compositions for solo string instruments\u2014from Biber and Bach to Reger and Ysa\u00ffe\u2014Weinberg\u2019s scores present thorny technical challenges to the player in terms of double-stopping, awkward fingerings and bowings, and tricky string crossings. To the listener, they can present challenges as the ear tries to sort out melodic strands and harmonic implications. On both counts, I found Weinberg\u2019s essays for solo viola no more or less daunting than Reger\u2019s Suites for Solo Viola or Ysa\u00ffe\u2019s Sonatas for Solo Violin. To be sure, Weinberg\u2019s harmonic palette relies heavily on sharply clashing minor seconds, major sevenths, and other dissonant constructs, such that after repeated exposure the ear comes to accept them as being consonantly stable, thereby allowing phrases and, in some cases movements, to end on cadences that would ordinarily be considered unresolved in traditional tonal harmony\u2014the phrase ending on a minor seventh double-stop, E-D, in measure 19 of the first sonata\u2019s first movement being one example.<\/p>\n
It would be a stretch, however, to pin Weinberg with the label avant-garde. His music may be freely tonal, but it is not in the atonal style of Schoenberg, nor does it fall into any readily classifiable mid- to later 20th-century \u201cism.\u201d Much about it is Russian in the way that Shostakovich is Russian\u2014dark, brooding, and at times bitter, ironic, and mocking. If I had to put Weinberg into historical context, I\u2019d say that he and Galina Ustvolskaya (also b. 1919) were in the first flank of post-Shostakovich Soviet modernist composers that gave rise to the likes of Boris Tchaikovsky (1925\u20131996), Denisov (1929\u20131996), Gubaidulina (b. 1931), Schnittke (1934\u20131998), Kancheli (b. 1935), Silvestrov (b. 1937), and Tischenko (b. 1939).
\nFyodor Druzhinin (1932\u20132007), whose name may not be as familiar as some of those cited above, may nonetheless be included among them. His primary career pursuit, however, was that of violist who replaced Vadim Vasilyevich Borisovsky as a member of the Beethoven Quartet in 1964. It was Druzhinin for whom Weinberg wrote his Sonata for Viola Solo No. 1, and it was Druzhinin who edited and published the score and recorded it for LP. His own Sonata for Viola Solo heard here is much in the same vein as Weinberg\u2019s solo sonatas.<\/p>\n
Julia Adler\u2019s viola is not identified, but on its C and G strings it produces a tone of such amplitude and fullness that one might be fooled into thinking it was a cello, while even in the highest reaches of its A string there is never the slightest hint of that pinched, nasal quality that can blanch the instrument\u2019s sound. But the viola doesn\u2019t play itself, and for these truly astonishing and magnificent performances, Adler must be given her due. I would have to agree with the above-quoted Andreas Reiner called Adler\u2019s performances \u201ca musical mighty deed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second headnoted album, titled \u201cKeepsake of Modern Age,\u201d is all over the musical map, and may possibly appeal to more catholic tastes. Despite the disc\u2019s title, and the fact that all of the pieces on it do indeed date from the 20th-century, not all are \u201cmodern\u201d in the sense that is usually attributed to that label. For example, the CD opens with a Duo-Sonate for viola and cello by Otto Siegl (1896\u20131978). It\u2019s a five-movement \u201cneo-Baroquish\u201d suite-like affair that contains some very lovely and expressive Romantic writing. The composer is even quoted as having said, \u201cMy music is not actually \u2018modern\u2019 as such, and will be just as valid in years to come.\u201d Like the mute swan that only upon death \u201csang once and thus he sang no more,\u201d Siegl seems not to have been heard from again. Very little is known of him, other than the fact that he was born in Graz, Austria, and served as the town orchestra\u2019s concertmaster before he moved to Cologne where he taught at the conservatory and conducted the orchestra there from 1942 until the end of the war. I wasn\u2019t able to find much information on Siegl beyond that which Christoph Schl\u00fcren\u2019s booklet note offers. But what I did discover on my own was that Siegl wrote an opera, several oratorios, three symphonies, two concertos, one for piano and one for violin, several miscellaneous orchestral works, five string quartets, and a number of songs. Yet nothing of his output other than this duo for viola and cello is listed. Artists and record company execs, are you paying attention? Here is fertile soil for tilling.
\nThe other two unfamiliar composers here are G\u00fcnter Raphael (1903\u20131960) and Siegmund Schul (1916\u20131944). Raphael had a bit more of a run. His first symphony was premiered by Furtw\u00e4ngler in Leipzig in 1926, and one of his star pupils was Kurt Hessenberg. But being declared a half-Jew in Nazi Germany didn\u2019t help his career. Nonetheless, Raphael managed to compose five symphonies, concertos for violin and organ, half-a-dozen string quartets, and a considerable volume of chamber music for various combinations of instruments. A handful of his works have been recorded.
\nSchul was not so lucky. Born in the Saxon town of Chemnitz, he moved to Prague, where he befriended composers Alois Haba and Viktor Ullmann. Schul\u2019s output, however, is small; for in 1941 he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he died three years later at the age of 28.<\/p>\n
The remaining composers on the disc are of a familiarity that their bios needn\u2019t be elaborated. Nor are any of the pieces chosen here\u2014not even Bukoliki by Lutos\u0142awski, a composer usually associated with the Polish avant-garde\u2014of an uncompromisingly modernistic bent. Some, in fact, like Rebecca Clarke\u2019s Lullaby and moments from Raphael\u2019s Duo are infused with a great deal of Romantic passion, while Milhaud\u2019s Sonatine and Schul\u2019s Chassidic Dances are thoroughly charming and delightful.<\/p>\n
Once again, Julia Adler rises to the occasion, turning out some of the most gorgeous viola playing to be had on disc, and every bit her match is cellist Thomas Ruge. Also deserving of honorable mention is pianist Jascha Nemstov who accompanies Adler on the Weinberg album in the transcription of the clarinet sonata for viola and piano. The Neos CDs are beautifully recorded, presenting the players in exceptionally crisp, clean sound. Admittedly, the Weinberg works will take a little effort to come to terms with, but are bound to be worth it in the end. Both of these releases receive strong recommendations.<\/p>\n
Jerry Dubins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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