Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Symphony No. 17, Op. 137, "Memory" - Weinberg Edition, Vol. 2 (Fedoseyev)

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Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Symphony No. 17, Op. 137, "Memory" - Weinberg Edition, Vol. 2 (Fedoseyev)

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Composed in the 1980s, Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphonies Nos. 17 to 19 were combined by the composer to form a trilogy. The overriding title Die Schwelle des Krieges (The Threshold of War) refers to the Second World War, and thus to the memories that Weinberg, a Polish Jew who found a new home in the Soviet Union, connected with it. Symphony No. 17 is prefixed with a motto from Anna Akhmatova (1898–1966), the Russian poetess who, like Weinberg, suffered under the Stalin régime and was only rehabilitated years later. The motto translates roughly as follows: “My country, you have recovered your might and your liberty! But the burnt years of the war shall ever remain etched in the treasury of the people’s memory.”
The symphony, written between 1982 and 1984, is entirely instrumental and dispenses with vocal parts, such as those found in Symphony No. 18. It acquires special importance as the introduction to a grand triptych. As so often in Weinberg’s music, the orchestra is very large. Only the introductory Allegro sostenuto makes use of smaller forces. The strings strike up a sorrowful song in G minor. The “memory” mentioned in the work’s title reverberates in this opening. The more agitated second movement, strewn with Dies irae quotations from the Latin Mass of the Dead, gives rise to bellicose conflicts. At the end a solitary solo violin calms the masses and leads to a coda redolent with hope.
In his Symphony No. 17 Weinberg’s compositional technique is once again uncommonly nuanced. The third movement provides a good example. Here baroque counterpoint blends with the vigour of a traditional scherzo. The trio displays the woodwind to great effect. The coda is at once brief and effective. Following this quick movement is a slow lament. The clarinets and horns lend a “romantic” tinge to this final Andante.
There is an obvious proximity to Mahler and Bruckner, as is apparent in the muted brass toward the end. Embedded in the movement is a section of chamber music for solo strings and celesta. The grandiose G-major conclusion sounds like a musical rendition of the first two lines from Akhmatova’s motto. But only a superficial view would find the ending in accord with “socialist realism”. The affirmative ending also conveys the artist’s victory over the Stalin régime and any form of artistic dictatorship.
True, to the end of his days Weinberg pursued an individualist nonpolitical path. But the late symphonies also arose against the backdrop of glasnost and perestroika. Yet Weinberg belonged to a dying generation. Works such as this have “meanwhile found their place in the storage closet”, Weinberg remarked with a note of irony and self-criticism in 1988, for the music was not in step “with current fashions”.
The spirit of the contemporary avant-garde had penetrated Russia. Young composers generally questioned the value of such large-scale symphonies. They were considered ballast from the Cold War, art forms of a bygone age. In contrast, Weinberg’s works achieved great recognition in the West, beginning in the mid-1990s. They were praised for their high quality, which placed him on a par with Prokofiev and Shostakovich.