Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Jascha Nemtsov :: Shostakovich, Weinberg: Violin Sonatas

The present program is a continuation of Jascha Nemtsov's exploration of the music of Shostakovich and his Jewish circle of friends featuring a trio of violin sonatas. The tragedy of Mieczyslaw Weinberg sadly continues posthumously, as his musical output remains largely unperformed and unrecorded. Weinberg was a close friend of Shostakovich, and the two composers often exchanged both ideas and admiration. The two highly original Weinberg sonatas included here provide tremendous contrast to Shostakovich's dark score. Nemtsov is joined by violinist Kolja Blacher in vivid emotionally charged readings, making this a stunningly beautiful and valuable addition to the recorded literature. The Russian Jewish pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov was born in 1963, graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory with distinction in 1986, and moved to Germany in 1992. One of his specialties is Jewish art music. Since 1995 he has recorded twenty CDs including numerous world premiere recordings of this music, several of which have won major awards and received rave reviews. Nemtsov has been a member of the School of Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam since 2002. In 2004 he earned his doctorate with a dissertation on "The New Jewish School in Music." Kolja Blacher was born in Berlin and attended the Juilliard School of Music at the age of fifteen. Later he studied with Sándor Végh in Salzburg. Since 1999 Blacher has been a professor at the Hamburg Conservaotry, and has made guest appearances with major orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic.