Jewish Chamber

Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1913. His father worked in the Yiddish Theatre as a violinist. The young composer would also work in this theatre as a pianist, and the music of the Eastern European Jews would form an indelible influence on his music. As would the tragic events that overtook his family in the Holocaust. His parents and his sister were murdered in the Trawniki concentration camp by the Nazis.

Paul Dessau composed more than 450 works from all the genres, but scarcely a single one of them continues to meet with recognition and representation in today's concert world. The musicians of the Ensemble Avantgarde decided to change this with an impressive overview of the chamber oeuvre of this composer. The young Dessau celebrated great successes with his Concertino in the unusual instrumentation for solo violin with flute, clarinet, and horn already in 1925 and even won a composition prize for it. Dessau himself actually wanted to become a violinist, and Gewandhaus concertmaster Andreas Seidel masters with bravura what at times is a wildly virtuosic solo part.

This new release from DUX presents a collection of recordings commemorating Jewish composers active mainly before World War II. Their music represents various stylistic trends of their era and was inspired by numerous ideas. The Hebrew Melody for violin and piano, Op. 33 by Joseph Achron (1886-1943) resulted from his fascination with the religious music of Ashkenazi Jews, while the Sonata for violin and piano by Joachim Mendelson (1887-1943), the recording of which is also the Polish recording premiere, reveals neoclassical interests of its author, which is also the case of the Sonata for cello and piano by Szymon Laks (1901-1983).The Capriccio by Jozef Koffler (1896-1944) is an avant-garde composition through and through, using the dodecaphonic technique combined with a neoclassical form.

The central thread linking all the works featured in this recording is their assimilation of various elements of Jewish music, whether directly stemming from Chassidic folk traditions, or relating to material directly associated with religious worship. Each composer responds to this music in different ways, attempting in varying degrees to integrate it within the structural conventions of a Western European musical mainstream. By doing so, the music projects a multitude of emotions and feelings.