Daniel Hope Pays Homage to 19th-Century Violinist and Composer Joseph Joachim with New DG Album

By -

An exclusive DG recording artist, Hope has seen his discs on the famed Yellow Label reap critical hosannas. His 2009 DG Vivaldi album earned a Grammy Award nomination, and his 2010 release, Air. a baroque journey, is among the most celebrated in his sizable discography. Of that album, which features Bach, Handel and such lesser-known Baroque composers as Westhoff, Matteis, and Falconieri, Gramophone magazine declared: “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 next DG album, to be released in the U.S. on March 22, is The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim, a homage to the great 19th-century Austro-Hungarian violin virtuoso who was a friend and trusted collaborator of Brahms and the first interpreter and dedicatee – and reviser/editor – of works by Bruch and Dvorák.

The Romantic Violinist features both famous pieces and lesser-known works associated with Joachim, including Bruch’s ever-popular Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor and two of Joachim’s own compositions, the Notturno for violin and orchestra and the Romance for violin and piano. The album 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. The orchestral works feature the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic conducted by Sakari Oramo. There are also chamber pieces by Clara Schumann (a Romanze dedicated “in deep friendship” to Joachim) 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 discovering that it was performed in recital by Joachim’s wife, a contralto. Finally, Hope switches from violin to viola for Brahms’s “Wiegenlied” (the Brahms lullaby), joined by mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter and pianist Bengt Forsberg.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more