Mieczysław Weinberg, Giedrius Kuprevičius, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica, Vida Miknevičiūtė

Songs of Fate is one of the most personal records Gidon Kremer has made. With his chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica and soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė, the Latvian violinist turns to Mieczysław Weinberg and to three Baltic composers. They are the Lithuanians Giedrius Kuprevičius and Raminta Šerkšnytė and the Latvian Jēkabs Jančevskis, born between 1944 and 1992. In his own note Kremer writes that, to his surprise, the project "revolves around the notion of 'Jewishness'". The two pieces that frame the album are first recordings.

The music comes from two occasions. Weinberg and Kuprevičius were recorded in July 2019 at Plokštelių studija in Vilnius. The Šerkšnytė and Jančevskis pieces are concert recordings from July 2022 in the parish church of Lockenhaus, in Austria. Cellist Magdalena Ceple and vibraphonist Andrei Pushkarev step forward as soloists. Kremer leads the orchestra from the violin, and Manfred Eicher produced the album. Weinberg's music dates from 1942 to 1952, while everything else was written in the last two decades. The booklet carries Kremer's note and an essay by Wolfgang Sandner.

Šerkšnytė's This too shall pass (2021), for violin, cello, vibraphone and strings, trades halting solo lines between violin and cello over the vibraphone's ticking figures. Kuprevičius contributes two movements from his Chamber Symphony The Star of David, a Kaddish-Prelude for violin and percussion and the Penultimate Kaddish for soprano and orchestra. Weinberg's share runs from the Aria Op. 9 of 1942 to the Kujawiak of 1952, with three of his Jewish Songs Op. 13 on Yiddish poems by Yitskhok Leybush Peretz. Jančevskis's Lignum (2017) closes the disc with string orchestra, chimes, wind chimes and svilpaunieki, Latvian whistles played like ocarinas.

The critical response was broad. In The New York Times (2024), David Weininger wrote that Kremer's playing "has the breath and rhythm of halting speech". Erik Levi, in BBC Music Magazine, praised "a fascinating and expertly performed programme of unfamiliar repertoire". AllMusic gave it five stars, and Norbert Hornig made it the record of the month in Fono Forum. Kremer's advocacy for Weinberg is longstanding, and on ECM he has also recorded the composer's sonatas for solo violin.

CD edition, ECM New Series 2745, released on 19 January 2024.