The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in the music of Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, an extremely productive composer with an output ranging from a Requiem to circus music. His musical style was extremely varied, and his richly-coloured palette ranges from folk elements to dodecaphonic techniques. Folk-music elements were not only of Polish and Russian origin, but also Jewish and Moldavian (some of his ancestors had come from Moldova).

While much of the recent focus has been on Weinberg's epic-scale music for orchestra, he also composed a substantial number of songs and song cycles, which share similarities with those of his great mentor Dmitri Shostakovich.

Northern Flowers is proud to release a significant addition to the Weinberg discography: the world premiere recordings of six song cycles by Weinberg, sung by one of his leading interpreters, Polish bass Tomasz Raff.