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VAINBERG Chamber Symphonies:
No. 1, op. 145; No. 3, op. 151; No. 4, op. 153 (CLAVES CD 50-9811)

Moisei Vainberg, aka Mieczyslaw Weinberg, 1919-96, has suffered for far too long from being considered (where he is considered at all) as being a Shostakovich epigone. But Shostakovich was not of that opinion: His professional and personal respect for Vainberg ran very deep, and practical; he was, for example, prepared to adopt Vainberg's daughter if Vainberg, arrested during Stalin's last phrase of paranoia, had died in captivity. They showed each other the music they were working on. Shostakovich usually chose Vainberg as his duet partner when performing piano reductions of his orchestral works, either for friends or for the committees of cloth-eared Party bureaucrats who had to pass judgment on the suitability of each work for public performance. And in March 1975, though suffering from the appalling infirmities that would kill him only a few months later, Shostakovich made the journey from Moscow to Leningrad to attend the rehearsals of Vainberg's opera Madonna and the Soldier.

Weinberg (not, it seems, Vainberg: I am told that at the end of his life he expressed his preference for the original spelling of his name rather than the transliteration that had become current) was one of the most productive composers of the 20th century, to his own discomfort: The sinfoniettas and chamber symphonies he began to compose toward the end of his life are no less symphonic than many of the works he admitted into the official canon of his numbered symphonies, it was simply that he was embarrassed by his own Myaskovksian fecundity, and so sought to disguise the extent of his achievement. These three Chamber Symphonies (composed between 1986 and 1992) testify to the unimportance of the labels he applied: The music itself is of extremely high quality, ranging from an easygoing, folky pastoralism through a grave slateliness to closely argued symphonic allegros, indeed, the first movement of the Chamber Symphony No. 1 covers most of this range of expression on its own. Weinberg's naturally contrapuntal cast of mind means that the music is constantly propelling itself forward, grimly purposeful or skittishly good-humored as the occasion requires.

The playing of the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin on this disc is nothing short of thrilling. The ensemble is clean and tightly focused. Evgeny Petrov's handling of the solo clarinet is superb. Misha Rachlevsky's judgment of tempo is bang-on. When Weinberg is belting forward at full speed, this is just as exciting as a spin in a highly tuned sports car.

The extensive booklet notes, by Manashir Yakubov, give an insightful and sympathetic conspectus of the vicissitudes of Weinberg's life of suffering, borne with dignified equanimity. But I see a slip that suggests he may have conflated an earlier text with further notes to produce this one. Initially, he erroneously ascribes 26 symphonies to him. Relying on information from Yakubov I perpetuated this error in my obituary of Weinberg in The Independent (London): Weinberg's daughter later corrected me, explaining that he was in fact at work on No. 22 when he died, a point Yakubov makes himself later in the booklet.

The running for Weinberg's music on CD has been made almost exclusively by Olympia, now with 16 discs on the market presenting a generous cross-section of his output: symphonies, chamber and instrumental music. And Olympia was here not so long ago, releasing Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 on OCD 651 last year, with the Umea Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thord Svedlund. Rachlevsky gets crisper playing from his Moscow musicians than Svedlund does from his Swedes, though there's not much in it; Rachlevsky's tempos also have rather more drive and, of course, the Claves disc also gives you the Third Chamber Symphony. That does leave a gap, in the form of the Second Chamber Symphony, and another Olympia disc has recently filled it: Volume 16, the latest of their survey, contains that work and his Symphony No. 2, for string orchestra, from 1945-46, offering an instructive contrast between Weinberg's early and late styles.

Claves's new release is a wholly successful disc, then, and required listening for anyone wondering where to go after getting to know Shostakovich. The superficial similarities of style fall away once you get to know Weinberg's music, and a fully formed, wholly individual composer emerges, one of the most compelling voices of the 20th century. I really do urge you to try this excellent recording as, indeed, any of the Olympia CDs that preceded it. You might also want to try a recent (1997) Russian Disc CD (RD CD 10071) that brings together Weinberg's wonderful Cello Concerto. op. 43, and the infuriatingly memorable Fantasia, op. 52, for cello and orchestra, in passionate performances from Mark Drobinsky and the State Cinematographic Orchestra under Walter Mnatsakanov; the other work here is Yuri Levitin's Cello Concerto, op. 54.

And may I offer Misha Rachlevsky an idea for his next Claves project, since he'll want to complete his recordings of these Chamber Symphonies? The Fourth is dedicated to Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-96), whose Sinfonietta for strings is one of the most immediately appealing scores in the entire literature for string orchestra. It's a natural coupling that would win both composers many friends.

MARTIN ANDERSON