Fine Performance Orchestral music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg - heard by GEOFF PEARCE 'Serenade Op 47 No 4 ... represents a happier and undemanding part of the composer's output, written, I guess, to appease the authorities.'

Quite a lot has been written about Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), a personal friend of Shostakovich, and some rate Weinberg as one of the three greatest Soviet era composers. He did not enjoy a great amount of success over his lifetime, even though works such as the first symphony impressed Shostakovich.

Symphony No 13 was written in 1976, in memory of Weinberg's mother, who perished along with his father and sister in a Polish transit camp in the 1940s. This one-movement work unfolds in a 'symmetrical arc'...

MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG

NAXOS

RUSSIA

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

WARSAW

POLAND

MOSCOW