Weinberg: Children's Notebooks

The music of Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996), Soviet composer of Polish origin whose impressive legacy of many outstanding compositions has been often compared to his illustrious compatriots, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, but also unduly neglected in their shadow, has been at the centre of the Slovak pianist Aneta Majerová's attention for some time. Majerová (*1979) dedicated to Weinberg already her previous recording for Animal Music from 2016, which features the composer's Piano Quintet. Her new album includes a complete of Weinber'g "Children's Notebooks" for piano, a cycle of 21 beautiful and very diverse short pieces which originated during the last years of Stalin's dictatorship. Despite its title, the compositions in the cycle are very demanding and require a wide array of professional skills. Weinberg's "Children's Notebooks" represent one of the most beautiful piano cycles of the 20th century and deserve to be performed much more often that has hitherto been the case. Aneta Majerová's is the third performer in the world to have come up with the collection's complete recording.