Mieczysław Weinberg

German edition

David Fanning's book is the first comprehensive monograph on Weinberg's life and work. Compiled from the family archives and the estates and memoirs of those close to the composer, it tells the story of a man who devoted his life exclusively to music despite fierce opposition. The result was a vast body of work that, "in search of freedom," broke with the adversities of the totalitarian systems of the 20th century. This lifelong conflict runs like a thread through the biography of the most important Soviet composer alongside Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–1996), a Pole of Jewish descent, narrowly escaped persecution by the Nazis twice: in 1939, he fled his hometown of Warsaw to Minsk, and in 1941, he fled from there to Tashkent. In 1943, he settled in Moscow, where he was soon recognized as one of the country's outstanding composers. His music was performed by Gilels, Oistrach, Kogan, Rostropovich, Kondrashin, and others. He also enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich.

Surviving Nazi terror in the Soviet Union did not prove to be the longed-for freedom from the late 1940s onwards. During the anti-formalism campaign, Weinberg was "officially criticized" and even imprisoned in 1953. He was accused of "bourgeois Jewish nationalism." It was only after Stalin's death that his release could be secured, and despite serious health problems, he enjoyed a period of fruitful productivity that lasted into the 1990s. Based on opus numbers alone, he composed more than 150 works, including the opera The Passenger, which is considered a masterpiece of 20th-century music.

In collaboration with Peermusic Classical (Hamburg – New York)
2nd edition