Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, Vida Miknevičiūtė: Songs of Fate CD

“Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording”, observes Wolfgang Sandner in his liner note accompanying the Latvian violinist’s new album Songs of Fate. Together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė, Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Raminta Šerkšnytė, Giedrius Kuprevičius, Jēkabs Jančevskis and the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg. In a performer’s note, Kremer explains how, reflecting on the different threads that create the fabric of this programme, “I realise – to my own surprise – that in many ways, this project revolves around the notion of ‘Jewishness’.“ Poignant deliveries of excerpts from the Chamber Symphony "The Star of David" and "Kaddish" by Giedrius Kuprevičius as well as the "Jewish Songs" by Mieczysław Weinberg emphasize this connotation. Bookending Songs of Fate are premiere recordings of Raminta Šerkšnytė’s "This too shall pass" and Jēkabs Jančevskis’s "Lignum," bringing the voices of a younger generation of composers to the fore.

Tracklist:
1. This too shall pass
The Star of David
2. David's Lamentation
3. Kaddish-Prelude
4. Penultimate Kaddish
The Star of David
5. Postlude. The Luminous Lament
6. Nocturne
7. Aria, op. 9
Jewish Songs, op. 13
8. Viglid (Cradle Song)
9. Oyfn grinem bergele (On the Green Mountain)
10. Der yesoymes brivele (The Orphan's Letter)
11. Kujawiak
12. Lignum