Mieczyslaw (Moisei) Weinberg - Cello concerto, Op. 43 - II. Moderato

St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Titov, conductor
Dmitry Khrychov, cello

Most of Weinberg's scores had to wait long to be performed. For instance, the premiere of the First Symphony was played not before twenty-five years had passed since it was finished, namely on February 11, 1967 (by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kirill Kondrashin.)
Half that time passed from the concept and first sketches of the Cello Concerto (1945) till the premiere performed by Mstislav Rostropovich on January 9, 1957 (Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Samuil Samosud). The Cello Concerto is literally permeated with Jewish folk, melos; Weinberg did not need to quote genuine folklore, because he had absorbed it in his childhood, it was in his blood, and it became his language... It happened to be sufficient for the Concerto finished in 1948 (first edition) not to be performed for nearly a decade in the atmosphere of " struggle against Zionism". Only after 20th Congress of the Communist Party the Concerto (2nd version 1956) was admitted to the philharmonic stage. No matter if you were a "formalist", a follower of Shostakovich, or a "roothless cosmopolitan" loving your ethnic art - it was all the same to them and their ideological turnpike would block your entry. Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky, who was called " the musical conscience of Moskow", in a talk with Weinberg rightly called the "historic" resolution of 1948 on the Soviet composers' music, a "hysteric" resolution.
In his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Weinberg extends a hand to Myaskovsky: stern simplicity and homeliness of themes, supreme musicianship that does not strike the eye, as if hiding away from any "marketplace huddle" - with modesty and piercing sincerity in everything.
The first movement (Adagio) is a lyrically ample monolog aria of cello solo, with the orchestra just supporting its singing. The melody developed broadly and freely leads to a dynamic culmination where the orchestra takes the theme over. In the coda, cello fades away, melting in a high register pianissimo. The second movement (Moderato) entering without an intermission is a sad unhurried dance; it is started by a muted cello, with orchestral voices joining in. Trumpet solo initiates an inevitable Jewish Freilechs. Both these themes, alternating and intertwining, recall to memory Marc Chagall's drawings from his Vitebsk cycles. The third movement (Allegro) is a dashing scherzo; the dancing nature of its main themes is emphasized with a brief lyrical episode located in the centre of the movement. The scherzo is rich in various virtuoso effects, but they are especially abundant in the cadence for cello solo, which is a kind of a bridge laid to Concerto's finale. The cadence mainly develps intonations from the Concerto's first and third movement, thus performing the functions of a reprise. The finale (Allegro) in a freely interpreted sonata form does not foretell the cycle's dramatic culmination at first.
Both intonationally close themes of a pastoral nature are enhanced with an episodic theme performed by a muted trumpet. But it is this theme that is to become the core of the development leading to the summit of not only the finale but also of the entire Concerto;in the culmination, this dance theme sounds like a dance macabre. Only once throughout the Concerto the composer does not restrain his emotions, for the ashes of Holocaust victims, the ashes of his family knock at his heart. And right after that, the song-like theme of the first movement sounds in a powerful orchestral tutti as a symbol of immortality of the nation. The Concerto is crowned with a bright C major coda; cello in a high register "betroths" the finale's theme to the theme of the first movement: the circle is locked.
Iosif Raiskin