ACD 268 - Wajnberg String Quartets Nos 14&15, Three Palms by CDAccord

of Soviet Composers’ Retreat in Staraya Ruza near Moscow
until 11th August. String Quartet No. 14 consists of five movements played attacca as one whole and only marked
with metronomic indications. (...)
Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 14 was most likely never performed in the composer’s lifetime. The first
documented performance was given by Quatuor Danel in 2007 in Manchester. Despite this, less than half a year
after writing the last note of this quartet, Weinberg began to compose his Fifteenth, which it took him two winter
months to complete (1st January to 1st March 1979). This composition takes the unusual form of a suite made up
of as many as nine movements, likewise only marked with metronomic indications.
While the striking contrast found in the 1st movement of the previous quartet may bring to mind
associations with Gustav Mahler, who was young Weinberg’s great fascination, the clash of different musical worlds
in the opening of the Fifteenth suggests the postmodernist aesthetic that was then gaining popularity among Soviet
composers of the young generation. The main advocate of this style was Alfred Schnittke, who juxtaposed
ostentatiously tonal, even banal elements with typically modernist, atonal ones. (...)
The mirrored motifs, the character of the 5th movement, and a finale that refers back to the previous
movements – made some commentators speak of Bela Bartók’s influence, and indeed he may partly have inspired
Weinberg in his work on String Quartet No. 15, dedicated to four young instrumentalists who were the first to play
Bartók’s works in the Soviet Union. From 1975 they all attended the class of Valentin Berlinsky, the cellist of
Borodin String Quartet and Weinberg’s long-time friend. In 1976 they won a competition in Budapest and began to
perform as Moscow String Quartet. In September 1980 they were the first (and until 2008 also the last) to play
Weinberg’s Fifteenth.
Borodin String Quartet, in its turn, is implicated in the origin of Three Palms. In 1977, the ensemble was
preparing a recording of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, in the last two movements of which the quartet
is joined by a female singer. This concept must have inspired Weinberg, since in the autumn of 1977 he wrote a
piece for precisely the same performing forces. The voice plays a prominent role in the music from the beginning;
the composer himself referred to this piece as a cantata. Berlinsky recalled: “[W]e performed Three Palms with
Ludmila Belobragina, unfortunately only twice. It is a piece abounding in symbols and colours, far from easy, with
modernist twists untypical of Weinberg.” (Information concerning a performance of this composition with Galina
Pisarenko on 28th November 1984, found in several sources, therefore seems erroneous.)
Danuta Gwizdalanka

Contains tracks

• ACD268 - Track01 - Wajnberg - String Quartet No. 14 Op. 122 1mvt by CDAccord
• ACD268 - Track06 - Wajnberg - Three Palms Op. 120 by CDAccord
• ACD268 - Track15 - Wajnberg - String Quartet No. 15 Op. 124 9 Mvt by CDAccord