Mieczysław Wajnberg and the Category of Borderland Polish musicologist and author Danuta Gwizdalanka, titled her publication Mieczysław Wajnberg: Composer from Three Worlds (Poznań, 2013). Wajnberg (1919–1996) was a Polish composer with Jewish roots who spent most of his life in USSR. Without any doubt, Wajnberg can be named “the composer from the borderland” due to his “hybrid identity”, which was one of the most important reasons preventing appreciation of Wajnberg’s creative activity both during life and after death. The main ideas of the paper are focused on the “category of borderland” and its representation in Wajnberg’s biography and output. According to the typology proposed by Krzysztof Zajas, Wajnberg’s live and works can be considered in the frame of following types of borderland: interdisciplinary, spatial, psychological, existential, sociological and mythological. Through the prism of “borderland’s category”, Wajnberg’s creative activity shows itself as a very individual and invaluable testimony of his times (far away from eclectic and epigonic in relation to music of Dmitri Shostakovich), unique on the scale of world music literature.
Opus 57 by Mieczysław Weinberg is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and interesting vocal cycles in the composer’s oeuvre. The Gypsy Bible is closely linked to two figures Weinberg regarded as his masters: Julian Tuwim in the field of words, and Dmitri Shostakovich in the field of musical strategies. Verena Mogl in her publication “Juden die ins Lied sich retten” – der Komponist Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–1996) in der Sowjetunion draws attention to the mostly hidden or veiled references to the life and works of Shostakovich. They become the key to interpreting the cycle both in the context of the relationship between the authors and the political situation prevalent at that time. The article presents the most important threads concerning the biographical and artistic kinship between Weinberg and Tuwim, as well as the issues indicated by Verena Mogl, probably unknown to Polish readers. The appendix attached to the article contains all of Tuwim’s poems used in The Gypsy Bible along with the formal structure given to them by the composer. This is a new contribution to research on the creative output of Mieczysław Weinberg.
Polish musicologist and author Danuta Gwizdalanka titled her publication Mieczysław Wajnberg: kompozytor z trzech światów [Mieczysław Weinberg: Composer from Three Worlds] (Poznań, 2013). Weinberg (1919–1996) was a Polish composer with Jewish roots who spent most of his life in the USSR. Without any doubt, he can be called ‘a composer from the borderland’ due to his ‘hybrid identity’, which was one of the most important reasons that affected the appreciation of Weinberg’s output both during his lifetime and after death. The main ideas of this paper centre on the category of ‘borderland’ and its representations in Weinberg’s biography and oeuvre. According to the typology proposed by Krzysztof Zajas, Weinberg’s life and works can be considered in terms of the following types of borderland: interdisciplinary, spatial, psychological, existential, sociological, and mythological. Through the prism of the category of ‘borderland’, Weinberg’s creative work manifests itself as a highly individual and invaluable testimony of his times, Far from eclectic and epigonic in relation to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, his oeuvre is unique in the world’s music literature.
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