Weinberg: Chamber Music Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite, Yulianna Avdeeva

• Mieczysław Weinberg (1919 - 1996): Three Pieces for Violin and Piano:
• 1 1. Nocturne 06:33
• 2 2. Scherzo 02:19
• 3 3. Traum von einer Puppe 06:12
• Piano Trio in A Minor, Op. 24:
• 4 1. Praeludium and Aria 05:38
• 5 2. Toccata 04:06
• 6 3. Poem 09:43
• 7 4. Finale 10:02
• Sonata No. 6 for Violin and Piano, Op. 136bis:
• 8 1. Moderato 06:28
• 9 2. Adagio 02:56
• 10 3. Moderato 04:50
• Total Runtime 58:47

Info for Weinberg: Chamber Music

Following the success of the Weinberg Symphonies 2 & 21 with conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Deutsche Grammophon now features chamber music by Mieczysław Weinberg under the direction of Gidon Kremer.

Included among others are his “Three Pieces for Violin and Piano”, which Weinberg completed in the winter of 1934/35 when he was only 15 years old and had not yet received any compositional training.

What connects Weinberg’s works is not only their compositional perfection, but above all their constant commitment to beauty. It is a confession that in Weinberg’s music is above all pain and suffering.

Gidon Kremer, violin
Yulianna Avdeeva, piano
Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė, cello

Gidon Kremer
Driven by his strikingly uncompromising artistic philosophy, Gidon Kremer has established a worldwide reputation as one of his generation’s most original and compelling artists. His repertoire encompasses standard classical scores and music by leading twentieth and twenty-first century composers. He has championed the works of Russian and Eastern European composers and performed many important new compositions, several of which have been dedicated to him. His name is closely associated with such composers as Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Luigi Nono, Edison Denisov, Aribert Reimann, Pēteris Vasks, John Adams, Victor Kissine, Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, Leonid Desyatnikov and Astor Piazzolla, whose works he performs in ways that respect tradition while being fully alive to their freshness and originality. It is fair to say that no other soloist of comparable international stature has done more to promote the cause of contemporary composers and new music for violin.

Gidon Kremer has recorded over 120 albums, many of which have received prestigious international awards in recognition of their exceptional interpretative insights. His long list of honours and awards include the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis, the Bundesverdienstkreuz, Moscow’s Triumph Prize, the Unesco Prize and the Una Vita Nella Musica – Artur Rubinstein Prize. In 2016 Gidon Kremer has received a Praemium Imperiale prize that is widely considered to be the Nobel Prize of music.

In 1997 Gidon Kremer founded the chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica to foster outstanding young musicians from the Baltic States. The ensemble tours extensively and has recorded almost 30 albums for the Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, ECM labels. In 2016/17 Kremerata Baltica was on landmark tours through Middle East, North America, Europe, and Asia to celebrate the orchestra’s 20th anniversary.

The 2018/19 season leads Gidon Kremer to many new projects and concerts with his chamber orchestra and also many solo recitals focusing on the music of Mieczysław Weinberg. He will also be “artist in residence” with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Yulianna Avdeeva
gained international recognition when she won First Prize in the Chopin Competition in 2010. She has since embarked on a world-class career and her artistic integrity is rapidly ensuring her a place amongst the most distinctive artists of her generation. Described by the Financial Times as an artist who is "able to let the music breathe", Yulianna Avdeeva is always uncompromisingly and profoundly devoted purely to the music itself. Conjuring an impeccable combination of clarity, energy and elegance, Avdeeva wins audiences with her compelling honesty, wit and musical judgement.

After making her Australian debut in a recital at Sydney Opera House in 2018, Yulianna Avdeeva ventures on a dynamic 2018/19 season which includes invitations from the Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras. Further highlights include debuts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Boulez Saal in Berlin, Avdeeva’s return to St Petersburg Philharmonic, and new orchestra collaborations with the City of Birmingham, and Trondheim symphony orchestras.

A regular performer throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Avdeeva made her debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and toured Japan together with the Bamberger Symphoniker last season. Most recently, she worked with New Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on tours of Japan, and performed the Macao Orchestra season opening concert. Elsewhere, recent orchestral highlights have included Avdeeva’s debut at the Salzburg Festival and Alte Oper Frankfurt, her return to the Lucerne Festival, a tour of Germany with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, engagements with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio and Stavanger symphony orchestras, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Orchestre National de Lyon.

An avid and committed chamber musician, she has worked with the Philharmonia Quartet and toured throughout Europe with violinist Julia Fischer appearing at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Tonhalle Zurich, Prinzregententheater Munich, Smetana Hall in Prague, Teatro Principal de Alicante and Sociedad Filarmonica de Bilbao amongst others. In 2018, Yulianna Avdeeva appears with Kremerata Baltica in Latvia, Denmark and Hungary and performs with the Schumann Quartet in Lucerne. In recital, she has performed at London’s International Piano Series and the Wigmore Hall, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and International House of Music, Rheingau Musik Festival, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, Liederhalle Stuttgart and Philharmonie Essen.

Yulianna Avdeeva's Chopin performances have drawn particular praise, marking her out as one of the composer's foremost interpreters who brings out the strength as well as the refinement of his music. Her long association with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute has won her a huge following in Poland. She is a regular with the Warsaw Philharmonic and National Polish Radio Symphony orchestras with whom she has forged strong relationships. In 2018/19, Avdeeva tours with Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra to Milan and Prague. Avdeeva’s third solo recording on Mirare, featuring works by Bach, has just been released. She also released a recording of the Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen. In 2015, Deutsche Grammophon featured Yulianna Avdeeva in a solo recording as part of a milestone collection dedicated to the brightest winners of the Chopin Competition between 1927 and 2010.

Avdeeva began her piano studies at the age of five with Elena Ivanova at Moscow’s Gnessin Special School of Music and later studied with Konstantin Scherbakov and with Vladimir Tropp. At the International Piano Academy Lake Como, she was taught among others by William Grant Naboré, Dmitri Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong. In addition to her Chopin prize, she has won several other prizes including the Bremen Piano Contest in 2003, the Concours de Genève 2006 and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Poland.

Giedre Dirvanauskaite
comes from a family of musicians in Kaunas, Lithuania.

She studied at the renowned Lithuania Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius and gained important musical impulses through master classes with Mstislav Rostropovich, David Geringas, Hatto Beyerle and the violinist Tatjana Grindenko and the Hagen Quartet.

Since 1997 she has been one of the founding members of the Kremerata Baltica Orchestra, which was founded by Gidon Kremer in the same year. She has been its solo cellist since 2008.

In addition to her activity with Kremerata Baltica, she is a regular guest at various festivals as a chamber musician and has thus played with many world-class artists like Martha Argerich, Michel Portal, Sa Chen, Valery Affanassiev, Oleg Maisenberg, Mate Bekovac, Yuri Bashmet.

As soloist she played under the direction of Saulius Sondeckis, Roman Kofman, Gintaras Rinkevicius, Andres Mustonen, Mario Brunello, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Andrei Boreyko.

With Khatia Buniatishvili and Gidon Kremer, Giedre Dirvanauskaite was awarded the "Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik" for recording the piano trios by Tchaikovsky and Victor Kissine by ECM.

In 2017 a recording of both Rachmaninov piano trios with Gidon Kremer and Daniil Trifonov was released by the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft and was very successful.

Giedre Dirvanauskaite performs in a piano trio formation in addition to her regular worldwide tours with the Kremerata Baltica with Yulianna Avdeeva and with Georgs Osokins.

She plays an instrument by Alexander Gaglianus, made in 1709.

Booklet for Weinberg: Chamber Music