Daniel Hope’s festive summer 2011
Violinist Daniel Hope’s summer will be a festive one, with a return to Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in an expanded role as Artistic Director, and with multiple concerts in the U.S. at music festivals in Aspen, Santa Fe and Menlo.
Set in one of Germany’s most beautiful provinces, the “Meck-Pomm” Festival hosts 130 concerts in 90 venues for some 70,000 visitors each year, from mid-June to mid-September. Last year in his role as Artistic Partner, Hope put forth, to great success, a characteristically vast repertoire of concerto and chamber music: works from Mendelssohn to Prokofiev, to selections from his Grammy-nominated Deutsche Grammophon album, Air. a baroque journey. For this 22nd annual festival, the violinist takes over the artistic planning: from June through August, he will program and perform another wide array of works, including concertos by Bach and Mozart, and chamber music from Schumann to Schnittke. On June 18 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hope will perform the world premiere of Bechara El-Khoury’s Violin Concerto No. 2, “War Concerto,” a piece commissioned for Hope by the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival.
Of the French-Lebanese composer El-Khoury and his work, Hope told Classical Archives: “El Khoury is someone I find to have an amazingly strong and a very lyrical voice. … The `War Concerto’ is somewhat based on the story of my great-grandparents’ escape from Nazi-Germany, but it also examines his own experiences of growing up in Lebanon and Paris. I’m very excited about it.”
Hope was a 2006 Prize Winner in Residence at Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and has intensified his relationship with the festival in recent years. Now as Artistic Director, he runs his own summer concert series called “Hope’s Music,” which he uses to foster the development of young talent and encourage cultural exchange. “During the summer months, I will be guesting regularly in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a violinist, a friend of the Festspiele, and as a curious audience member,” says Hope. “In these roles, I will be able to experience and present interesting musicians and projects, and play a lot of music, too.” The Festival has one of Europe’s largest young musician series, offering more than 30 newcomers the chance to give recitals. This summer, Hope will collaborate with this year’s Prize Winner in Residence, cellist Li-Wei Qin, who will bring in the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra and further widen the Festival’s international connections. Hope also welcomes back the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (with artistic directors David Finkel and Wu Han) and Carnegie Hall’s “Academy” Program, both in residence for the second consecutive year.
Back in the U.S.A.
At Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival on July 15, Hope will take part in a concert with the Aspen Chamber Symphony conducted by Robert Spano, performing Ravel’s Tzigane and another El-Khoury piece, Unfinished Journey, a piece commissioned by Hope in 2009 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin’s death. On July 19, he plays and directs a Baroque program showcasing material from his album, Air. a baroque journey, with works ranging from Bach, Vivaldi and Telemann to dazzling rarities by Westhoff, Falconieri and Matteis. Air. a baroque journey has been one of the most celebrated releases in Hope’s sizable discography. Gramophone magazine exclaimed: “This is an exciting disc, with a heady, pied-piper power over the listener that comes from realizing that the bright sense of discovery once felt by these composers is being experienced just as much by their modern-day interpreters. You can’t ask for much more than that.”
Hope’s summer festival season continues with three concerts at New Mexico’s Santa Fe Music Festival. The July 23 program features concertos by Bach; both the July 24 and 25 concerts present chamber music by Mendelssohn, Brahms, and 20th-century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.
On July 31, Hope makes his debut at the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival in Northern California, joined onstage by two friends and frequent collaborators: cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han (who are also artistic directors of the festival). This trio, plus violist Paul Neubauer, will play a concert that spotlights another musical collaboration between friends: 19th-century violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim and his close musical compatriot Johannes Brahms. The program mirrors the theme of Hope’s most recent DG album, The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim, and includes two major works by Brahms: the Violin Sonata No. 1 and the Piano Quartet No. 1, along with lyrical romances by Joachim, Dvorák, and Clara Schumann, and arrangements of songs by Mendelssohn.
Acclaim for Hope’s DG album, The Romantic Violinist
Hope’s most recent DG recording, The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim, is a tribute to the great 19th-century Austro-Hungarian violin virtuoso who was a friend and trusted collaborator of Brahms, Bruch and Dvořák. The album has received praise on both sides of the Atlantic since its March release. The San Francisco Examiner touted his performance of Bruch’s ever-popular Violin Concerto No. 1 as “highly satisfying.” BBC Music said: “Hope never takes this over-familiar score for granted and has imaginative things to say at every juncture.” The London Times described the disc as “burning with passion”, while the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung raved: “How fast one’s heart warms when you hear a violin sound like this – pierced with a lavish enthusiasm not heard since the golden days of Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz.”
Along with Bruch’s concerto, The Romantic Violinist features famous and lesser-known works associated with Joachim, including two of his own compositions. The album also includes Joachim’s arrangements of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances Nos. 1 and 5 in new versions for violin and strings, as well as an arrangement for violin and orchestra by mid-20th-century film composer Franz Waxman of Dvorák’s Humoresque, Op. 101, No. 7. There are chamber pieces by Clara Schumann and Brahms (the Scherzo from the “F-A-E” Sonata, the multi-composer tribute based on Joachim’s motto, “free but lonely”), performed with pianist Sebastian Knauer. Hope adds his own transcription of Schubert’s song “Auf dem Wasser zu singen,” which he was inspired to include after seeing it listed in a recital by Joachim’s wife, a contralto. Finally, Hope switches from violin to viola for “Brahms’s Lullaby,” joined by mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter.
In a review of the album, The Observer of London had this to say:
This tribute to a giant of the 19th-century violin is an engaging run around both Joachim the performer and Joachim the composer. Big-hearted Daniel Hope, backed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under Sakari Oramo, seems equally at home in the wide open spaces of Bruch’s concerto (which the master totally revised and improved) and the warm intimacy of Joachim’s own delightful Romanze for violin and piano. Hope maintains that [Joachim’s] wonderfully lyrical Notturno is the epitome of the term `romantic’ – touching and inspiring rather than wild and passionate – and in his hands it’s hard to disagree.
Daniel Hope will perform his Joachim Tribute with pianist Wu Han, cellist David Finkel, and violist Paul Neubauer at the Music@Menlo Festival on July 31.
Daniel Hope’s summer 2011 engagements
June 8-9
Wurzburg, Germany
Mozart Festival
Bach: Violin Concerto No. 1, BWV 1041
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major
Orchester L’Arte del Mondo
June 11
Samow, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Bach: Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor
Mozart: Divertimento for Strings in D Major
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major
Haydn: Symphony No. 83 in G minor, “The Hen”
Orchester L’Arte del Mondo
June 18
Neubrandenburg, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
El-Khoury: Violin Concerto No. 2, “War Concerto”
NDR Sinfonieorchester
July 2
Redefin, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Wann darf ich klatschen?
July 7
Hasenwinkel, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Concert for Children
July 8
Hasenwinkel, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Mozart: Nachtmusik in B Major
Martinů: 3 Madrigals for Violin and Viola, “Duo No. 1”
Beethoven: Duo in E-flat Major for Viola and Cello, “Eyeglass Duo”
Penderecki: String Trio
Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20/4
Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango for Flute, Harp, and Percussion:
Nightclub 1960 and Concert d’aujourd’hui
July 9
Ulrichshusen, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Dohnanyi: Sextet, Op. 37
Rachmaninoff: Trio élégiaque No. 1
Takemitsu: Towards the Sea for Flute and Harp
Bolling: Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio
July 9
Ulrichshusen, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Beethoven: Piano Trio in B Major Op. 11, “Gassenhauer”
Debussy: Sonata in F Major for Flute, Viola, and Harp
Kagel: Match for 3 players
Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81
July 10
Ulrichshusen, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango for Flute, Harp, and Percussion:
Bordel 1900 and Café 1930
Tchaikovsky: String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70, “Souvenir de Florence”
July 15
Aspen, CO
Aspen Music Festival
Ravel: Tzigane
Schoenberg: Finding Rothko
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major
El-Khoury: Unfinished Journey
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60
Aspen Chamber Symphony
July 19
Aspen, CO
Aspen Music Festival
Vivaldi: Concerto for 2 Violins in A minor, RV 522, Op. 3, No. 8
Telemann: Violin Concerto in A minor, TWV 51:a1
Vivaldi: Concerto grosso in D minor, RV 565, Op. 3, No. 11
Westhoff: Imitazione delle campane from Sonate a Violino Solo, Sonata III
Westhoff: Imitazione del liuto from Sonate a Violino Solo, Sonata II
Westhoff: La Guerra cosi nominata di sua maestra from Sonata in A Major, “La Guerra”
Falconieri: Passacaglia and Ciaconna
Pachelbel: Canon and Gigue in D Major
Matteis: Diverse bizzarrie sopra la Vecchia Sarabanda o pur Ciaccona
Vivaldi: Sonata for 2 Violins in D minor, RV 63, Op. 1, No. 12, “Follia”
Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068
July 23
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Bach: Violin Concerto No. 1, BWV 1041
Bach: Concerto for 2 Violins, BWV 1043
Bach: Cantata, “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut,” BWV 199
July 24-25
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Martinů: Serenade No. 1
Martinů: Quartet, H. 139
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 87
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3, Op. 60
July 31
Music@Menlo – Debut
Dvorak: Romantic Pieces, op. 75
Clara Schumann: Romance, op. 22, no. 1
Brahms: Violin Sonata no. 1 in G Major, op. 78
Mendelssohn: Two Songs
Joachim: Romance, op. 2, no. 1
Brahms: Piano Quartet no. 1 in g minor, op. 25
August 4
Loitz, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
David Orlowsky Trio
Music by David Bruce
August 25
Schönberg, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Haydn: String Trio No. 1 in G Major
Bolcom: Haydn-Go-Seek for Piano Trio
Mozart: Duo for 2 Violins in G Major
Schnittke: Moz-Art for 2 Violins
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat Major
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
August 28
Ulrichshusen, Germany
Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
Tchaikovsky: String Sextet in D minor, Op. 70, “Souvenir de Florence”
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
www.danielhope.com