Daniel Hope and Jeffrey Kahane triumph on USA Recital Tour

February saw Daniel Hope and renowned pianist/conductor Jeffrey Kahane perform an extensive North American duo tour.  The two colleagues prepared a characteristically ambitious program that covered the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, featuring Johannes Brahms’ Opus 78 G major sonata and César Franck’s 1886 sonata in A major, his only composition in the sonata genre.  The earlier twentieth-century compositions were the 1927 sonata by Erwin Schulhoff, a composer murdered by the Nazis, followed by one of Olivier Messiaen’s earliest pieces of chamber music, a set of five variations on a theme composed as a wedding present for his first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos. Messiaen was also imprisoned by the Nazis as a POW, but survived.

The tour included performances at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, Los Angeles' Royce Hall and Vancouver's Chan Center for the performing arts.

The press was unanimous in their praise for this oustanding duo:

San Francisco Chronicle, February 2011: " In a world where classical concert programs spend so much time cycling endlessly through the same familiar repertoire, a program like Thursday's exciting duo recital by violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Jeffrey Kahane comes as a welcome - and also infuriating - reminder of how much great music audiences are routinely missing...............Hope and Kahane gave it a marvelous performance. Just as beautiful was Messiaen's "Theme and Variations,"............Brahms' First Sonata sounded ripe and rich-toned........the Franck Sonata in A Major moved with assurance from vigorous brilliance to delicacy and back again."

San Francisco Examiner, February 2011: "Needless to say, both Hope and Kahane mustered that energy without sacrificing a sense of the formal sonata structures that provided a foundation for this tumult.  The result was a stimulating, perhaps even refreshing, reminder of just how forceful the modernists of that time were in rejecting past traditions.........Thus, as had been the case with the Brahms, this was a performance that found just the right balance between passionate expressiveness and solid respect for structural foundations........Hope and Kahane performed it with all the respect it deserved, bringing a meditative conclusion to a thought-rich evening."

The Vancouver Sun, February 2011: " Beyond exceptional playing, the program had another important raison d’etre: two works that I don’t think have ever featured on Vancouver programs. The tragedy of Schulhoff and the great service done by musicians who are allowing us to rediscover his fine music is a compelling story all on its own. His Second Violin Sonata, written in the late 1920s....what a reading it got from the duo! Messiaen’s Theme and Variations, written in the early 30s when the composer was in his early 20s, is something of a miracle: every second of the work shows a composer who knew exactly what he wanted and exactly who he was. Remarkable.
And remarkable chamber playing from a spectacular duo."

EntertainmentToday.net, February 2011: "Hope is a solo violinist, and Kahane is just as adept on the piano...........the two stood on equal footing as they led a rapt audience through some jarring pieces, some beautiful pieces, and some which alternated between the two within the same movements........The music was brilliant, the stage banter was self-deprecating and humorous, and the history lessons were appreciated."

And here is a New York Times interview from February 2011 with Daniel Hope, talking about his work in supporting composers who's music the Nazis tried to silence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/nyregion/13musicwe.html