I'd like to add a qualification to Steve Schwarz's otherwise excellent
review of Weinberg's ballet The Golden Key, in the form of a note from
Per Skans which can be found at the URL http://www.freewebs.com/black_arrow/:

   [quote]
   Per Skans on Mieczyslaw Weinberg's (Moishei Vainberg's) name:
   "Why Weinberg?
    Why not Vainberg?
    Why not Wainberg?
    Or Vajnberg?
    Or Wajnberg?

   The reason is very simple: Weinberg is correct, all other
   spellings are wrong!  Weinberg grew up and spent his first
   twenty years in Poland, where the Latin alphabet is used, and
   he and his family spelt the name exactly this way.  Its origin
   is German/Yiddish.  Any other spelling in the Latin alphabet
   must thus be avoided!

   I confess having a certain guilt myself, since I once accepted
   - without checking them - certain rumours that Weinberg himself
   preferred the spelling "Vainberg".  I discovered my error
   after I had written the texts for half a dozen CDs in the
   large series of Olympia in London, and I wanted to change the
   spelling, but they refused.  In fact I understand this, because
   it would have confused their customers if they had changed
   it in the middle of a series.  Nevertheless the CDs have
   unfortunately contributed to the present Babylonic situation.

   The variety of (wrong) spellings is due to the circumstance
   that various people believed that the original spelling of
   the name was the one of the Russian alphabet.  They then
   transliterated the name into the Latin alphabet, according
   to various rules (an ironical detail being that Soviet scores
   -- of all!  -- used the correct spelling Weinberg!).  But now
   Weinberg is becoming increasingly accepted.  The New Groves,
   the famous dictionary, used the English transliteration
   "Vaynberg" some years ago, but in the Internet edition they
   have now corrected this into Weinberg.

   I am at present writing a biography in English which is
   scheduled to appear in 2005 at Toccata Press in London; there
   I of course am using the correct spelling Weinberg!

   Per Skans Uppsala, Sweden
   [unquote]

Cheers

Martin Anderson
Toccata Press
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