Output details

Danel, Marc. Weinberg String Quartets vols. 2-6, for cpo (Classic Production Osnabrück): • Vol. 2 - CPO 777 392-3 [2008]• Vol. 3 – CPO 777 393-2 [2009]• Vol. 4 – CPO 777 394-2 [2010]• Vol. 5 - CPO 777 566-2 [2011]• Vol. 6 - CPO 774 587-2 [2012]

This first complete cycle of the 17 string quartets of Mieczyslaw Weinberg has been one of the outstanding initiatives in chamber music recording in the 21st century. During the past five years, the Quatuor Danel has led the discovery of this repertoire, with performances of individual quartets in numerous venues, including festivals built around Weinberg’s music in Bregenz and Hamburg, and with complete live cycles in Manchester, Utrecht and Brussels (forthcoming in Heidelberg). Reviews of the CPO recordings have hailed the repertoire as a major discovery and the performances as outstandingly impressive - for selected quotes, see http://www.quatuordanel.eu/discographie.php.

At least 8 of the 15 quartets on vols. 2-6 are world premiere recordings. For most of these, the Quartet had to prepare their own parts from the manuscripts, collating these with. In other cases the manuscripts were carefully collated with the published scores and resolving numerous issues of discrepant tempo and expression markings, accidentals and cuts. In stylistic matters the Quatuor Danel was guided by its early training with Valentin Berlinsky (cellist of the Borodin Quartet and friend of the composer) and with Fyodor Druzhinin (violist of the Beethoven Quartet and custodian of the Shostakovich quartet style that is in many respects close to Weinberg’s own). They also referenced the composer’s recorded legacy (as pianist) and consulted extensively with Professor David Fanning, whose liner notes are a notable feature of each disc, providing in condensed form the first published scholarly commentaries on all the works.

This initiative represents a decisive step towards establishing Weinberg’s string quartets as crucial contributions to the genre in the 20th century, alongside the canonical 20th-century cycles by Bartók and Shostakovich, and far in advance of such worthy and similarly productive composers as Milhaud, Myaskovsky or Holmboe.

The case for double weighting rests on the indicators in the Additional Information statement, plus the quantitative element of 5 hours 54 minutes of recorded music. A guideline comparison could be a hypothetical first recorded cycle of the Bartók Quartets, half of them being first recordings of unpublished scores, all involving research into primary materials and performance practice from the composer’s inner circle. Then multiplied by three.