Belle Époque Daniel Hope

• Claude Debussy (1882 - 1918):
• 1Claude Debussy: Rêverie, L. 68 (Arr. Badzura)06:08
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951):
• 2Arnold Schoenberg: Notturno for Strings and Harp03:12
• Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912):
• 3Jules Massenet: Thaïs: Méditation (Arr. Knoth)05:30
• Reynaldo Hahn (1874 - 1947):
• 4Reynaldo Hahn: À Chloris (Arr. Hope and Crawford-Phillips)03:03
• Alban Berg (1885 - 1935):
• 5Alban Berg: Schließe mir die Augen beide01:08
• Claude Debussy:
• 6Claude Debussy: Préludes / Book 1, L. 117: 8. La fille aux cheveux de lin (Arr. Hope and Crawford-Phillips)02:21
• Ernest Chausson (1855 - 1899):
• 7Ernest Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21: 1. Décidé - Calme - Animé (Orch.)15:10
• 8Ernest Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21: 2. Sicilienne – Pas vite (Orch.)04:15
• 9Ernest Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21: 3. Grave (Orch.)11:39
• 10Ernest Chausson: Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21: 4. Finale – Très animé (Orch.)11:28
• Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949):
• 11Richard Strauss: 4 Lieder, Op. 27, TrV 170: 4. Morgen!04:00
• Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941):
• 12Frank Bridge: Miniatures: 7. Valse Russe03:11
• SIR Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934):
• 13SIR Edward Elgar: Chanson de Matin, Op. 15 No. 2 (Arr. Bateman)03:18
• Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871 - 1942):
• 14Alexander von Zemlinsky: Serenade für Violine und Klavier: 1. Mäßig02:07
• Sergey Vasil'yevich Rachmaninov (1873 - 1943):
• 15Sergey Vasil'yevich Rachmaninov: 2 Morceaux de Salon, Op. 6: 1. Romance05:47
• Arnold Schoenberg:
• 16Arnold Schoenberg: Piece in D Minor01:17
• Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924):
• 17Gabriel Fauré: Andante, Op. 7504:17
• Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937):
• 18Maurice Ravel: Sonate Posthume for Violin and Piano, M. 1214:15
• Alban Berg:
• 19Alban Berg: Jugendlieder: 10. Winter01:07
• Fritz Kreisler (1875 - 1962):
• 20Fritz Kreisler: Liebesleid03:14
• Gabriel Fauré:
• 21Gabriel Fauré: Morceau de lecture01:25
• Charles Koechlin (1867 - 1950):
• 22Charles Koechlin: Quatre Petites Pièces: 2. Très modéré01:51
• 23Charles Koechlin: Quatre Petites Pièces: 4. Scherzando00:59
• 24Charles Koechlin: Quatre Petites Pièces: 3. Allegretto quasi andantino02:01
• 25Charles Koechlin: Quatre Petites Pièces: 1. Andante03:02
• George Enescu (1881 - 1955):
• 26George Enescu: Impromptu concertant05:15
• Claude Debussy:
• 27Claude Debussy: Préludes / Book 1, L. 117: 12. Minstrels (Arr. for Violin and Piano)02:12
• Paul Juon (1872 - 1940):
• 28Paul Juon: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 28: 3. Berceuse02:30
• Anton Webern (1883 - 1945):
• 29Anton Webern: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7: 1. Sehr langsam01:06
• 30Anton Webern: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7: 2. Rasch01:22
• 31Anton Webern: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7: 3. Sehr langsam01:27
• 32Anton Webern: Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7: 4. Bewegt00:56
• Christian August Sinding (1856 - 1941):
• 33Christian August Sinding: Suite im alten Stil, Op. 10: 2. Adagio05:32
• SIR Edward Elgar:
• 34SIR Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 4713:57
• Total Runtime02:30:02

Info for Belle Époque

It was the age of the Lumière Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, Karl Benz, the Wright Brothers and Louis Blériot, Marie Curie and Louis Pasteur – an age not unlike our own, marked by rapid scientific and technological development as well as intense literary, artistic and musical activity. The Belle Époque, the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the outbreak of World War One in 1914, was a time of apparent peace and prosperity but with a darker reality of social and economic deprivation lying not far beneath its gilded surface. This era of creativity and contradiction has long fascinated Daniel Hope: “I often wish I had a time machine to go back to the salons of Paris, indeed to that entire age,” he says.

Belle Époque – Hope’s 17th recording for Deutsche Grammophon – offers a panoramic snapshot of the music that came out of this world, capturing its mix of late-Romantic, Impressionist and Modernist styles. The violinist’s double album places popular repertoire by Massenet, Debussy and Elgar alongside rarely heard miniatures by Rachmaninov, Charles Koechlin, Frank Bridge and members of the Second Viennese School.

“It was a time when people started to question the very idea of art,” Hope explains. “Where did it come from, what was it allowed to say, what were its values and what should or could it express?” Composers, while still drawing on models from the past, were experimenting with new techniques and sonorities and, as time went on, began to reflect the underlying tensions of a world that was about to be swept away by war.

At the heart of the album is Ernest Chausson’s Concerto in D major for violin, piano and string quartet, a little-known yet compelling work recorded here in a new transcription for the two soloists with an increased string orchestra. Hope is joined by members of the Zürcher Kammerorchester, of which he has been Music Director since 2016, and pianist Lise de la Salle. “I find the piece encapsulates so much of that period,” he comments, “the sensual tonality and yet this deep, almost nostalgic desire to revisit one’s past.”

Belle Époque features several other orchestral works including arrangements of Debussy’s Rêverie and the “Méditation” from Massenet’s opera Thaïs, Schoenberg’s nostalgic Notturno for violin, harp and strings, and Elgar’s exhilarating Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and orchestra. Daniel Hope also directs the Zürcher Kammerorchester and soprano Mojca Erdmann in Richard Strauss’s song Morgen!, a reflection on the bliss of true love.

“I wanted the album to reflect what was happening throughout Europe: Art Nouveau, Secession, Jugendstil”, Hope says. “These related trends were understood as a rejection of the traditional forms of the nineteenth-century ‘Gründerzeit’. A fresh, sensual art was to emerge, adhering closely to nature as a model and at the same time able to give visual expression to deep, concealed emotional states.”

Partnered by pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, Daniel Hope also explores the extraordinarily rich resource of Belle Époque chamber music. A sense of yearning for the certainties of the past flows through “Romance”, one of two salon pieces for violin and piano composed by the young Rachmaninov, while the pursuit of the new can be heard in the sounds and silences of Webern’s Four Pieces Op.7 (1910-14). Hope and Crawford-Phillips are joined by Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, in Charles Koechlin’s Four Little Pieces for horn, violin and piano Op.32, and their chamber repertoire also takes in Hahn’s Bach-inspired À Chloris, Kreisler’s evergreen Liebesleid and pieces by Berg, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Enescu, as well as lesser-known gems by Fauré, Paul Juon, Bridge and Ravel.

Dissatisfied with what is now known as the Sonate posthume, Ravel suppressed the score. In fact the sonata, like so much of the music of the Belle Époque, looks to the past and future at once, to striking effect, with its haunting lyricism and unexpected harmonic shifts. “I’m aware that some people say Ravel was so exact and that he buried certain pieces and didn’t want them discovered or performed,” says Hope. “Nonetheless, I find the piece, just on the cusp of the new century, an exact and very moving representation of what Belle Époque stands for.”

Daniel Hope is performing extensively in the first half of 2020, with concerts in France, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Ukraine and the US. He and the Zürcher Kammerorchester will perform repertoire from Belle Époque at concerts on tour in Germany in the spring.

Daniel Hope, violin
Mojca Erdmann, soprano
Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano
Stefan Dohr, viola
Jane Berthe, harp
Maria Todtenhaupt, harp
Lise de la Salle, piano
Yibai Chen, cello
Zürcher Kammerorchester

Daniel Hope
British violinist Daniel Hope has toured the world as a virtuoso soloist for more than twenty years, and as the youngest ever member of the Beaux Arts Trio during its last six seasons. He is renowned for his musical versatility and creativity and for his dedication to humanitarian causes. Hope performs as soloist with the world’s major orchestras and conductors, directs many ensembles from the violin, and plays chamber music in a wide variety of traditional and new venues. Raised in London and educated at Highgate School, Hope earned degrees at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with renowned Russian pedagogue Zakhar Bron.

London’s Observer called Hope “the most exciting British string player since Jacqueline du Pré,” and recent New York Times reviews summarized his unique attributes: “... a violinist of probing intellect and commanding style... In a business that likes tidy boxes drawn around its commodities, the British violinist Daniel Hope resists categorization.’

Daniel Hope, an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, has earned numerous Grammy nominations, a Classical BRIT award, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and five ECHO Klassik Prizes. He previously recorded for Warner Classics and Nimbus, playing Bach, Britten, Elgar, Finzi, Foulds, Ireland, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Penderecki, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Tippett, Walton, and Weill. His recording of the Berg Violin Concerto was voted to be the “best available of all time” by Gramophone Magazine in 2010. His Mendelssohn CD for Deutsche Grammophon featuring the Violin Concerto and Octet was voted one of the finest Mendelssohn recordings by the New York Times in 2009. His recent release for Deutsche Grammophon was a tribute to the great and highly influential violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831- 1907) and centred around the Bruch concerto, a work with which Joachim was closely associated. The Bruch was recorded with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. "Four Seasons Recomposed" – the newest release in DG’s “Recomposed” series presents Daniel Hope with the Berlin Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra, conducted by André de Ridder, in a world première recording of British composer Max Richter’s." Spheres" – which is Hope’s own project, due out in early 2013 – is a curated collection of repertoire celebrating the idea, first brought forward by Pythagoras, that planetary movement creates its own kind of music. This idea has fascinated philosophers, musicians, and mathematicians for centuries. The CD’s program includes music in a variety of styles, from Baroque to minimalist, by Bach, Faure, contemporary masters like Arvo Pärt and Michael Nyman, and younger composers who have specially composed new works for Hope, based on the idea of spherical music. These include Gabriel Prokofiev, Ludovico Einaudi, Alex Baranowski and Aleksey Igudesmann. Hope is joined by the Berlin Rundfunk-choir under the direction of Simon Halsey on this disc.

Hope regularly directs chamber orchestras as violin soloist with ensembles including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Salzburg, and Lucerne Festival Strings. He has performed at the world’s most important festivals, such as the BBC Proms, Hollywood Bowl and the Lucerne, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Tanglewood festivals. Daniel Hope has performed in all of the world’s most prestigious venues and with the world’s great orchestras. Highlights include the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, as well as the major orchestras of Berlin, Birmingham, Dallas, Detroit, Dresden, Israel, London, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna. He is Associate Music Director of the Savannah Music Festival and Artistic Director at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Summer Festival in Germany. He has also published three bestselling books.

Daniel Hope plays the 1742 “ex-Lipiński” Guarneri del Gesù, placed generously at his disposal by an anonymous family from Germany. The instrument carries the name of its owner, the 19th century Polish violinist Karol Lipiński, who shared the stage with Paganini, Schumann and Liszt.

This album contains no booklet.