Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s First Symphony (1942), although dedicated to the Red Army (as a Jewish refugee fleeing Poland from the Nazis, Weinberg had good reason to be grateful), is no mere piece of Socialist Realist bombast. It begins innocently enough but soon indulges in those tracts of gnarly counterpoint that we find in Weinberg’s later works, and the finale’s minor-key ending comes as a big surprise. Melodically there’s a lot of Shostakovich here, but the gaunt orchestration and emotional ambivalence are surely personal. The Seventh Symphony, for strings and harpsichord, is a strange piece, alternately grim and consoling, and often quite disturbing in its juxtaposition of consonant and dissonant harmonies. It surely deserves a place in the repertoire of today’s chamber orchestras.
Weinberg’s music does not play itself; the performers need to project his somewhat gangly melodic lines with a rhythmic firmness and conviction that these versions scarcely understand. The Seventh Symphony was written in 1964 for Rudolf Barshai’s Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and they recorded it for Melodiya. Comparison is instructive. Barshai takes about 26 minutes over the entire piece; Svedlund requires more than 29, and most of that difference occurs in the finale, which is supposed to be an allegro. In short, this performance is accurate but tentative just where it needs to surge, and the result lacks contrast and intensity. The more conventional First Symphony comes across a bit better, but here too we feel the need for a true Russian (or Slavic) bite and urgency in the quick outer movements. Well engineered in all formats, this release is proficient, but little more.
