Uncommon Comrades

Uncommon Comrades By Leon Botstein Written for the concert Uncommon Comrades, performed on June 3, 2007 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. The history of European Jewry is frequently written according to a narrative that suggests an inexorable logic leading to a tragic destiny. The persistence of anti-Semitism over centuries throughout Eastern and Western…

Mieczyslaw Weinberg By David Fanning, University of Manchester Written for the concert Uncommon Comrades, performed on June 3, 2007 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996) – A Brief Profile Mieczyslaw Weinberg—to use the Germanised spelling he himself reportedly preferred—had a remarkable life, even by the standards of those many composers buffeted…

Dmirti Shostakovich, Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 “Babi Yar” By Laurel E. Fay Written for the concert Uncommon Comrades, performed on June 3, 2007 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. In late September 1961, while Shostakovich was in Leningrad attending rehearsals of his new Twelfth Symphony, “The Year 1917” (dedicated to the memory of…