- Jaromir Weinberger
- Chamber and organ music
- Asaf Levy – violin
- Stephan Froleyks – side drum
- Efrat Levy – piano
- Moran Abouloff – soprano
- Gerhard Weinberger – organ
- Co-production:
- Gideon Boss Musikproduktion and Deutschlandfunk © 2011
- Co-producer: Yuval Shaked
The gravestone of Jaromir Weinberger and his wife at Kibbutz Gezer, Israel
In Hebrew: Jaromir and Jane Weinberger – A well known Czech musician and his wife – Dear family relatives who died in the USA and brought to be buried in Israel by the Polacek family
Photo © Yuval Shaked
Jaromir Weinberger (born in 1896 in Prague) composed the opera Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeifer (Schwanda the Bagpiper) in 1926. The explosive success that it enjoyed was to accompany the Jewish composer all his life, and to plague him. It became for him a promise shown, and a measure that perhaps could never be attained again. At the beginning of 1939 Weinberger fled from the Nazis to the USA, yet his hopes for a renewed and promising start were soon dashed. He continued to compose, but declined into states of deep depression. On August 8, 1967 he committed suicide in St. Petersburg, Florida.
This double-CD is devoted to little-known works from various times and places of Weinberger’s career. They stretch across an astonishing stylistic span, from the national traditions of Smetana and Dvořák, through artistically inventive pedagogical program-music to the religiously charged compositions from the latter period of his life. The composer proves himself a consistent master of polyphonic-contrapuntal configurations and of harmony that is fine, supple and varied, and occasionally dense. As an ’old master’ who was also a kind of raging stream he forged his own path through a changing world that both inspired and tormented him. The accompanying booklet contains a detailed essay, giving an account of the composer’s life in the light of documents and photos published for the first time – as well as dealing in more depth with the works presented.