Tchaikovsky - Elgar - Mozart: Serenades Daniel Hope & Zurich Chamber Orchestra

• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893): Serenade for String Orchestra in C Major, Op. 48, TH 48:
• 1Tchaikovsky: I. Pezzo in forma di sonatina. Andante non troppo - Allegro moderato09:39
• 2Tchaikovsky: II. Waltz. Moderato. Tempo di Valse04:03
• 3Tchaikovsky: III. Élégie. Larghetto elegiaco08:39
• 4Tchaikovsky: IV. Finale (Tema russo). Andante - Allegro con spirito07:59
• Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934): Serenade for String Orchestra, Op. 20:
• 5Elgar: I. Allegro piacevole03:33
• 6Elgar: II. Larghetto05:53
• 7Elgar: III. Allegretto02:51
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Serenade in G Major, K. 525 "Eine kleine Nachtmusik":
• 8Mozart: I. Allegro08:08
• 9Mozart: II. Romance. Andante05:04
• 10Mozart: III. Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio01:53
• 11Mozart: IV. Rondo. Allegro05:28
• Total Runtime01:03:10

Info for Tchaikovsky - Elgar - Mozart: Serenades

Zu seinem 75-jährigen Jubiläum hat das Zürcher Kammerorchester eine Auswahl von beliebten Meisterwerken für kleine Orchesterbesetzung zusammengestellt. Zusammen mit Musikdirektor Daniel Hope präsentiert die Formation drei weltberühmte Streicherserenaden von Mozart, Tschaikowsky und Elgar, die zu den Highlights ihres Repertoires gehören.

Das Zürcher Kammerorchester zählt zu den führenden Klangkörpern im Bereich der Kammermusik und feiert in diesem Jahr sein 75-jähriges Bestehen. Dieses Jubiläum hat das Schweizer Ensemble zum Anlass für ein festliches Album genommen, das unter dem Titel “Serenades” drei klassische Werke beinhaltet, die zum Kernrepertoire des Orchesters zählen. So interpretiert das Kammerorchester darauf unter Leitung seines Musikdirektors Daniel Hope je eine Streicherserenade von Peter Tschaikowsky, Edward Elgar und Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart und gewährt einen intensiven Einblick in seine facettenreiche und fein ausgewogene Klangkultur. Das Album erscheint am 4. Dezember digital bei Deutsche Grammophon.

Tschaikowsky, Elgar und Mozart: Vielseitige Serenaden: Gleich drei gewichtige Streicherserenaden finden sich auf dem neuen Album des Zürcher Kammerorchesters, die die Vielgestaltigkeit der Gattung ebenso aufzeigen wie die ausgereifte Interpretationskunst des Ensembles. Zu Beginn steht mit der “Serenade für Streicher in C-Dur, Opus 48” von Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowsky ein spätromantisches Werk, das 1880 uraufgeführt wurde und im ersten Satz deutlich Bezug nimmt auf den Stil Mozarts. Besonders populär ist unter den vier Sätzen insbesondere der zweite Satz, ein inniger Walzer. “Je größer das Streichorchester, desto besser! Dies entspricht genau meinen Intentionen”, schrieb Tschaikowsky selbst über die gewünschte Aufführungspraxis dieser Serenade – das Kammerorchester folgt seiner Anweisung weniger mit der Größe, denn mit der Intensität und Dichte der klanglichen Ausdeutung.

Nach Tschaikowsky erklingt auf dem Album die dreisätzige “Serenade für Streicher op. 20”von Edward Elgar, die dieser 1892 komponiert hat und die mit jugendlichem Charme und musikalischer Innigkeit in den Bann zieht. Besonders eindrucksvoll ist hierbei das Larghetto, der tiefsinnige zweite Satz der Serenade.

Am Ende des Albums steht mit der “Serenade Nr. 13 für Streicher in G-Dur KV 525” von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart eines der wohl berühmtesten Stücke überhaupt, das von seinem Schöpfer selbst in dessen Werkverzeichnis als “Eine kleine Nachtmusik, bestehend in einem Allegro. Menuett und Trio.-Romance. Menuett und Trio, und Finale.−2 violini, viola e bassi” betitelt wurde. Mit seiner melodischen Schönheit, der kunstvollen Stimmführung und der ausgereiften Proportionierung und Ausgestaltung der einzelnen Sätze krönt dieses Stück in der Interpretation des Kammerorchesters das Jubiläumsalbum.

Hope und das Zürcher Kammerorchester: Eine lebendige Partnerschaft: Das Zürcher Kammerorchester blickt auf eine ebenso lebendige wie erfolgreiche musikalische Geschichte zurück. 1945 von Edmond de Stoutz gegründet, reicht sein Repertoire heute vom Barock bis zu zeitgenössischen Werken. “Diese Musiker sind so vielseitig wie ein Chamäleon!”, sagt Daniel Hope über das wendige Ensemble, dem er bereits seit September 2016 als Musikdirektor vorsteht. Für Hope ist die Leitung des Klangkörpers eine “Herzensangelegenheit”, wie er sagt, und immer wieder aufs Neue sei er überwältigt von der breiten Palette des Klangs. Äußerst flexibel, von satt bis reduziert, sei das Orchester in der Lage, ganz unterschiedliche Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten auszuloten. Selbst äußerst vielseitig in seinen Projekten, ist Hope diese Vielfalt sehr nahe und das Ergebnis der Zusammenarbeit ein großer Erfolg. Das Album “Serenades” wird im Jubiläumsjahr 2020 zur eindrucksvollen Dokumentation dieser facettenreichen Klangkultur des Kammerorchesters. Transparent und wendig, musikantisch und farbenreich durchdringen die Musiker die drei verschiedenen Serenaden und feiern unter Leitung von Hope ein musikalisches Fest.

Zürcher Kammerorchester
Daniel Hope, Violine, Leitung

Daniel Hope
British violinist Daniel Hope has toured the world as a virtuoso soloist for more than twenty years. 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. He was also the youngest ever member of the Beaux Arts Trio during its last six seasons. Raised in England and educated at Highgate School in London, Hope earned degrees at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Russian pedagogue Zakhar Bron.

Called “adventurous and brilliant” by the New York Times, Hope was named “the most exciting British string player since Jacqueline du Pré,” by the London Observer. A recent New York Times review summarized him as “a violinist of probing intellect and commanding style,” and continued: “In a business that likes tidy boxes drawn around its commodities, the British violinist Daniel Hope resists categorization. Mr. Hope, a compelling performer whose work involves standard repertory, new music, raga, and jazz, emphasizes thoughtful engagement over flamboyant display. In his most personal undertakings, he puts classical works within a broader context – not just among other styles and genres but amid history, literature, and drama – to emphasize music’s role as a mirror for struggle and aspiration.”

Hope has performed in all of the world’s most prestigious venues and with the greatest orchestras including the Boston, Chicago, Toronto, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, as well as the major orchestras of Berlin, Birmingham, Dallas, Detroit, Dresden, Israel, London, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna. He has performed at the world’s most important festivals, such as the BBC Proms and the Salzburg, Lucerne, Ravinia, Verbier and Tanglewood festivals.

Highlights of Hope’s 2011-12 season include appearances with the Los Angeles Philhamonic and Leonard Slatkin at the Hollywood Bowl, the Britten Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, his third appearance with the Oslo Phiharmonic Orchestra and recitals in New York, Washington, Aspen, and at Savannah Music Festival, where Hope has been Associate Artistic Director since 2003, and where he has recently renewed his contract until 2015. Hope is also the Artistic Director of the prestigious Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a summer Festival set in one of Germany’s most beautiful provinces and hosting over 120 concerts for more than 70,000 visitors. In addition to the festival’s many chamber and symphonic concerts, Hope arranged a special multi-genre concert to raise awareness of the world’s climate change crisis, supported by HRH The Prince of Wales.

Over the years Daniel Hope has commissioned and performed dozens of new works. In the summer of 2009, he gave the world- and UK-premiere performances of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s second violin concerto, Fiddler on the Shore – written for Hope and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra – in Leipzig and at London’s BBC Proms. In 2011 he gave the world première performance of Bechara El-Khoury’s “War Concerto”, also written for him, with the NDR Symphony Orchestra – he will perform the piece again in Berlin with the Konzerthausorchester in June 2012, and with the Oslo Philharmonic in September 2012. Hope has enjoyed close contact with composers such as HK Gruber, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Kurtág, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. He recorded Toru Takemitsu’s violin concerto, “Nostalgia”, with the composer. In 2008, Hope and Stewart Copeland, the former drummer of The Police, premiered Copeland’s Celeste for violin and percussion at the Savannah Music Festival.

In January 2012 Daniel Hope renewed his exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, for whom he has made eight acclaimed recordings to date. His latest release for DG is a celebration of the highly influential violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831- 1907) and is centred around the Bruch concerto, a work with which Joachim is closely associated. The Bruch was recorded in summer 2010 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. His previous release, Air. a baroque journey, looks at the history of the violin in the Baroque era. The CD pairs well-known works such as Pachelbel’s Canon, the folk tune “Greensleeves” and Bach’s sublime Air with rarely-heard compositions by Falconieri, Matteis, Geminiani and Westhoff, among others. Gramophone magazine called it “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 2007 recording for Deutsche Grammophon of the original version of the Mendelssohn Concerto and Octet was selected as one of the year’s best recordings by the New York Times.

Hope has earned numerous Grammy nominations, a Classical BRIT award, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, and five ECHO Klassik Prizes. Hope previously recorded for Warner Classics and Nimbus, playing Bach, Berg, Britten, Elgar, Finzi, Foulds, Ireland, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Penderecki, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Tippett, Walton and Weill. His interpretation of Ravi Shankar’s compositions, on the CD East Meets West, met with worldwide acclaim, whilst his world première recording of the original version of the Berg Violin Concerto (coupled with the Britten Concerto) was voted the “best available version” in a 2010 Gramophone magazine poll.

Beyond the concert stage, Hope has penned three best-selling books published in Germany, Russia, and Korea, titled Familienstücke (Family Album), a memoir, Wann darf ich klatschen?” (When do I applaud?) and Toi, toi, toi.

He has written scripts for collaborative performance pieces with the Oscar-winning actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, including “War and Pieces,” “Mozart Unplugged!” and “Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Someone Had to Do Something.” He also wrote “An Audience with Beethoven” for Mia Farrow, and “Forbidden Music,” featuring poetry and music written by prisoners at Theresienstadt. He has worked extensively as a presenter for both radio, film and television in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. His cutting-edge website features a video blog which he films and produces himself.

Yehudi Menuhin invited the 11-year-old Daniel Hope to join him playing Bartók duos on German television, launching a long artistic partnership consisting of over 60 concerts, including Lord Menuhin’s final concert appearance on March 7th 1999, in which he conducted Hope’s performance of Alfred Schnittke’s Sonata for Violin and Chamber Orchestra.

Hans Graf, Daniel Harding, Thomas Hengelbrock, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington, Sakari Oramo, Michel Plasson, Mstislav Rostropovich and Christian Thielemann are among the many conductors with whom Daniel Hope has worked. Instrumental collaborators include Thomas Adès, Yuri Bashmet, Hélène Grimaud, Edgar Meyer, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Lynn Harrell, Zakir Hussain, Sebastian Knauer, Jaime Laredo, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Mischa Maisky, Mark O’Connor, Anne Sofie von Otter, Mark Padmore, Menahem Pressler, STING, and Tabea Zimmermann.

Hope regularly directs chamber orchestras from the violin including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Salzburg, L’Arte del Mondo and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

Daniel Hope plays the 1742 "Ex-Lipinski" Guarneri del Gesù violin, put at his disposal by an anonymous family from Germany. He lives in Vienna.

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