Predominantly Sorrowful Weinberg's 'Polish Flowers' Symphony - impresses PATRIC STANDFORD '... appropriately and superbly performed ...'

Mieczysław Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1919 and after initial studies there as a pianist he moved to Minsk, graduated in 1941 and settled in Moscow where he became better known as Moyssey Samuilovich Vaynberg, praised by most leading Soviet artists (Gilels, Rostropovitch, Oistrakh) and by the Composers' Union who placed him along with Shostakovich and Prokofiev as the third of the Soviet Union's greatest composers. He lost most of his family in the Holocaust. Despite many honours and the enthusiastic support of countless distinguished performers, his reputation faded in the 1970s, largely due to little interest in his work outside Russia and the inevitable emergence of a younger generation that induced greater interest in the West, and he died in 1996 with hardly anyone but close friends noticing.

His output was considerable...

ANTONI WIT

POLAND

CHORAL MUSIC

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

RUSSIA