For Seasons Daniel Hope

• Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741): Concerto In E Major "La primavera", Op. 8, No. 1, RV 269:
• 11. Allegro03:14
• 22. Largo02:06
• 33. Allegro03:58
• Concerto In G Minor "L'estate", Op. 8, No. 2, RV 315:
• 41. Allegro non molto05:06
• 52. Adagio01:58
• 63. Presto02:39
• Concerto In F Major "L'autunno", Op. 8, No. 3, RV 293:
• 71. Allegro04:55
• 82. Adagio molto02:34
• 93. Allegro03:26
• Concerto In F Minor "L'inverno", Op. 8, No. 4, RV 297:
• 101. Allegro non molto03:17
• 112. Largo01:28
• 123. Allegro03:16
• Nils Frahm (b.1982):
• 13Ambre (Arr. By Christian Badzura)03:50
• Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 - 1764):
• 14Danse des sauvages02:00
• Max Richter (b. 1966):
• 15Spring 102:42
• Aphex Twin (b.1971):
• 16Avril 14th (Arr. By Christian Badzura)02:12
• Traditional
• 17Amazing Grace (Arr. By Daniel Hope And Dom Bouffard)03:35
• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893):
• 18June (Arr. By Daniel Hope And Jacques Ammon)05:28
• Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856):
• 1912. Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (Arr. By Daniel Hope)03:06
• Chilly Gonzales (b. 1972):
• 20Les doutes d'août02:42
• Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950):
• 21September Song (Arr. By Paul Bateman)02:51
• Johann Melchior Molter (1696 -1765):
• 22Aria II: Lento e sempre piano02:16
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750):
• 23Aria "Bete aber auch dabei"05:39
• Chilly Gonzales
• 24Wintermezzo03:03
• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897):
• 25Guten Abend, gut Nacht (Arr. By Daniel Hope) (Bonus Track)02:15
• Total Runtime01:19:36

Info for For Seasons

British violinist Daniel Hope’s new Deutsche Grammophon recording „For Seasons“, unites Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with a dozen pieces associated with the months of the year, from compositions by Rameau, Bach, Schumann and Tchaikovsky to recent works by Aphex Twin, Nils Frahm, Chilly Gonzales and Max Richter. Twelve visual artworks, specially selected to complement the music, are featured in the accompanying booklet.

The Four Seasons belongs to Daniel Hope’s earliest memories. As he recalls:

“I first experienced Vivaldi as a toddler at Yehudi Menuhin’s festival in Gstaad, in 1975. I heard what I thought was birdsong coming from the stage. It had such an electrifying effect that I still call it my ‘Vivaldi Spring.’ How was it possible to conjure up so vivid, so natural a sound of birds, with just a violin?”

The violinist was about seven when he first began to “stumble through” Vivaldi’s score, and 13 when he first performed The Four Seasons in public. His rising tally of performances stands today at about one thousand, but it was the adventure of recording Max Richter’s contemporary reimagining, Recomposed: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, as well as the delights of performing the original composition with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, which finally convinced him to make a recording of Vivaldi’s masterwork.

When it came to choosing companion pieces for the Vivaldi, Hope turned to a concept from the early years of his professional career: to use the Baroque concertos as a jumping-off point for a broader exploration of the artistic resonances of the seasons and their power to affect everything from literature and philosophy to painting and music. In Hope’s words:

“We have created a mosaic in music and images of what the seasons mean to me. I see it as a way of placing Vivaldi within a broader look back at my life and putting The Four Seasons together with works that match my feelings for the months of the year. There’s a modern message here, which is about the cohesive expression of time and life cycles. Those familiar cycles are being broken left, right and centre at present throughout our world. This is my way of marking time: my time and our times.”

Hope’s choice of compositions includes works directly associated with the calendar, including arrangements of Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th, “June” from Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and Kurt Weill’s September Song, and other pieces that convey the atmosphere of a given month. The lyrical Ambre by German composer and producer Nils Frahm, freshly arranged for solo violin, string quartet, double bass, harp, and piano, sets the contemplative mood for January. “Spring 1” from Max Richter’s Recomposed and “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen” from Schumann’s Dichterliebe emerged as the violinist’s firm favorites for March and July. Genre-hopping composer, pianist and producer Chilly Gonzales composed Les doutes d’août for August and supplied his Wintermezzo for December, as well as playing piano on both tracks. And Hope recorded Amazing Grace, his choice for May, in one take with the composer and sound artist Dom Bouffard while working with Robert Wilson on the latter’s award-winning radio play The Tower of Babel. A dance from Rameau’s ballet Les Indes galantes, music by Bach’s younger contemporary Johann Melchior Molter, and an aria by Bach himself, featuring soprano Anna Lucia Richter, reflect on the months of February, October, and November, respectively. Brahms’s famous lullaby “Guten Abend, gut Nacht” serves as a “Postscriptum.”

For Seasons also offers a showcase for the tremendous musicianship of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, of which Hope became the new Music Director after succeeding Sir Roger Norrington in the post last September. His long association with the ensemble dates back to his childhood, when his mother was manager for the legendary Yehudi Menuhin. The orchestra regularly performed at Menuhin’s Gstaad festival, the very place where Hope first encountered The Four Seasons. As the violinist observes:

“I have at my disposal an orchestra which has the flexibility to play Baroque music like a period-instrument band, and yet also performs Romantic and 20th-century music with great authority. I wanted to reflect that flexibility on our album, just as we do in our concerts together.”

Echoing the album’s musical range, an equally varied group of visual artworks are featured in the accompanying booklet, created by twelve different painters. Selected by Hope in collaboration with the artists, the works are carefully chosen to resonate in a variety of ways with the months they represent and the musical works with which they are paired.

Daniel Hope, violin
Jacques Ammon, piano
Chilly Gonzales, piano
Kaiser Quartett
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.

Booklet for For Seasons