Mieczyslaw Vainberg Series, Vol.6: Sym. 14/18

USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Latvian State Academic Chorus, Vladimir Fedoseyev

1. Symphony No. 14 opus 117
2. Symphony No. 18 "War, there is no word more cruel" opus 138

The cycle of Vainberg’s symphonies coming out on Olympia here reaches Vol. 6 with Nos. 14 and 18. Both works reflect the example of Shostakovich, Vainberg’s mentor if not actual teacher and a great admirer of the younger man’s gifts. These certainly include a capacity for symphonic thought, at its most powerful in the opening half of No. 14: here Shostakovich’s influence is less immediately obvious, but more deeply absorbed and more potent, as a long, elegiac line unfolds and grows with genuine musical momentum into a climax. The second half of the work is less remarkable, for all the virtuoso ear for how music can be drawn from a huge orchestra used as a resource for chamber music groupings. The further example standing behind Shostakovich here is, clearly, Mahler, an echo of whose voice is also to be heard in Symphony No. 18. This includes a part for chorus, and is the central symphony of a trilogy written in memory of those who fell in the Second World War. It is, in a sense, a more iconic work than No. 14: that is to say, there are gestures, both musical and poetic, which speak most resonantly to Russian suffering and sensibilities. Vainberg himself was acquainted with suffering, at the hands of both Nazis and Communists. His music is powerfully imagined, and in these works optimistic not in the shallow Socialist Realist sense but as a witness of compassion surviving dreadful persecution. He died earlier this year.
Vladimir Fedoseyev, a conductor whom Vainberg greatly admired and to whom No. 17 is dedicated, gives what seem to be exemplary performances. They were recorded at the original broadcasts in October 1980 and 1985; the sound is good, though, as can be heard, October is a bad month bronchially in Moscow. No matter: Vainberg is a composer who should have a wider hearing, and the Olympia series is doing an important service.
JW (From: Gramophone, December 1996)