Various performers have worked hard to bring the music of composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg before the public, and the commercial success of this release, the second in a cycle of the composer's string quartets from the Arcadia Quartet, must be gratifying for the performers. The fact that the emotional contours of his works resemble those of Shostakovich's should be no surprise, for the two composers had many of the same experiences, including surviving World War II only to be subject to heavy-handed restrictions from Soviet ...
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Various performers have worked hard to bring the music of composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg before the public, and the commercial success of this release, the second in a cycle of the composer's string quartets from the Arcadia Quartet, must be gratifying for the performers. The fact that the emotional contours of his works resemble those of Shostakovich's should be no surprise, for the two composers had many of the same experiences, including surviving World War II only to be subject to heavy-handed restrictions from Soviet cultural authorities. The genuinely tragic first movement and the beginning of the finale of Weinberg's String Quartet No. 7, Op. 59, match the intensity of any of Shostakovich's middle-period works, and the finale coalesces into a set of variations that embody a kind of grim defiance. The String Quartet No. 11, Op. 89, has a broader language that, as with Shostakovich, leaves room for sardonic undercurrents. However, Weinberg is no Shostakovich clone, for he takes routes to the...
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