Daniel Hope’s eternal journey to heart of Mozart
DYNAMIC British violinist Daniel Hope says he can’t begin to fathom the scale of Mozart’s genius, and his delightful new album shows the composer’s friends and influences.
Wentworth Courier
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“EVERY time I play Mozart I can only shake my head, because I can’t even begin to fathom the scale of his genius.”
So says dynamic British violinist Daniel Hope who is coming here in September with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra as their artistic director. They will play at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in September as part of the Utzon Series, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons alongside a program paying tribute to Hope’s mentor Yehudi Menuhin.
That concert promises to be a highlight for lovers of chamber music for the Swiss are a crack outfit and Hope is one of the most talented and exciting violinist-conductors in the world at the moment.
You can get a foretaste of how good they are together in a delightful new release by Deutsche Grammophon, Journey to Mozart, in which the dynamic British maestro, the youngest ever member of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio, tracks the composer’s genius by shining a light on contemporaries who knew or influenced him.
The album features pieces by Christoph Willibald Gluck, a key figure in the transition from the Baroque to Classical periods, Joseph Haydn and two lesser figures, eclipsed by Mozart, in the Czech Josef Myslivecek and the violinist and concert promoter Johann Peter Salomon, who helped to ensure both Haydn and Mozart’s lasting success.
All the music is superb. The two orchestral showstoppers the Dance of the Furies and Dances of the Blessed Spirits from Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice get it off to a spectacular start, followed by 18 minutes of Classical perfection in Haydn’s concerto in G major.
Myslivecek’s larghetto from his concerto shows that he was no slouch either. He and Mozart were close friends, Mozart helping and visiting him when the Bohemian composer was dying.
Salomon, who did so much to put Mozart and Haydn’s music out there on both sides of the English Channel, represents the transition from the Classical to Romantic with his lovely Romance.
But at the heart of the collection is a scintillating performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 3 — perhaps his second most popular one after the “Turkish” No 5. The work brings out Hope’s glorious tone and finely nuanced musicality.
It finishes on a spirited note with an orchestrated version of one of Mozart’s most beloved pieces, the Rondo alla Turca from the Piano sonata in A major K331 complete with the percussion instruments of the Janissary bands that so fascinated the Viennese in the 1790s.
Journey To Mozart is available from Fish Fine Music for $24.99.