In May 2025, the label Brilliant Classics released the album Mieczysław Weinberg. Songs, featuring five song cycles for soprano and piano, performed by Joanna Klisowska and Katarzyna Neugebauer.

The cycle Acacias, Op. 4 (dedicated “To Her”), was composed in 1940 to poems by Julian Tuwim, Weinberg’s favorite poet. The composer returned to Tuwim’s texts throughout his life. The album also includes the cycle Old Letters, Op. 77, written in 1962, again to Tuwim’s poetry.

Weinberg also set the works of Jewish poets in two additional cycles: Op. 13 and Op. 17. The Jewish Songs (also known as Children’s Songs) were composed in 1943, to the words of Izik Leib Peretz. A year later, in 1944, Weinberg wrote another Jewish Songs cycle, this time setting texts by Shmuel Halkin.

The Polish Romantic bard Adam Mickiewicz is also featured on the album. Weinberg's Three Romances, Op. 22 (1945), based on Mickiewicz’s poetry, can be interpreted as a deeply personal expression of longing for a lost homeland.

The works presented on this album, drawn primarily from Weinberg’s early creative period, offer an intimate portrait of this remarkable composer and his interwoven Polish, Jewish, and Soviet identities.

Publisher's website: https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/w/weinberg-songs/

Album available online: https://open.spotify.com/album/3j5p3BSqCXSXgr3izAFwBW 

• Pieśni żydowskie op. 13
• Akacje op. 4
• Trzy romanse op. 22
•  Stare listy op. 77 
•  Pieśni żydowskie op. 17

Wyk.: Joanna Klisowska (sopran) i Katarzyna Neugebauer (fortepian)

* Brilliant Classics 97553 (2025)

Total time: 65'10