Domovina

Better known for his works for orchestra or solo piano, Claude Debussy also composed a wealth of beautiful chamber music. This disc featuring the Pražák Quartet and the Kinsky Trio Prague (and invited guests) offers a selection of six works, ranging from the Piano Trio No.1 of 1879, via a fascinating chamber arrangement of the always popular 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune' to his last work, the Cello Sonata written in 1915. This audiophile quality multi-channel SACD presents these works a unique coupling, not featured on any other disc.

Little known in the West and in the former USSR, the name of Weinberg, the third great Russian composer of the 20th century, after Prokofiev and Shostakovich, seems to be slowly emerging from the shadow of the latter, his protector and friend. Far from being an epigone, he is rather, by his temperament as a symphonist and the importance of his chamber music, the spiritual heir. This part of his vast catalogue, not written to put food on the table, includes 17 quartets, the most experimental body of his work along with his sonatas, those for cello, written with Rostropovich in mind, being henceforth consecrated.

Both the term symphonic poem and the form itself were invented by Franz Liszt, who in works such as Les Préludes (1848; after Alphonse de Lamartine’s Méditations poétiques) used thematic transformation to parallel the poetic emotions. That’s true again with Byron (Tasso, lamento e trionfo), Schiller (Die Ideale) and Victor Hugo (Mazeppa). A winning quartet!