/ discography at a glance

First impressions suggest a high-energy, tightly accented approach, "period"-schooled while retaining an element of modern-instrument intensity...

Daniel Hope sees to it that the bass-line is firm and prominent, which tends to underline the sense of urgency...outer movements are fast and buoyant and in the E major Hope whirls into the first movement's second idea like a dervish possessed. Embellishment is legion, both along the solo line and in the discreetly balanced but lavishly stated continuo. The results approximate, more than usual with this music, dance models of the day, yet Hope always allows the slower music to breathe...

This is a refreshing, often enlightening programme, very well recorded.

Rob Cowan

Will someone give Daniel Hope a home now that his label may be withdrawing from new classical recordings? Playing of this intelligence cannot disappear.

This Bach repertoire is familiar (the violin concertos, the Fifth Brandenburg), but it all sounds fresh in these accounts with members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Continuo colours constantly change, while some notes surprise. Where there’s Hope, there’s life.

Fast...furious...fantastic!

If Kennedy plays the Bach concertos as an adrenalin rush, Daniel Hope goes even further, unleashing a quick-fire range of sleight-of-hand articulation that will have traditionalists diving for cover. Outer movements dance with infectious vitality...yet when Bach turns lyrically introspective, Hope gives the music plenty of room to breathe naturally. Nowadays we are used to modern instruments phrasing in the 'authentic' manner, but Hope also emulates 'period' gut strings with deftness. The COE players sound like they're loving every minute.

Julian Haylock

Bach Violin Concertos delight in semi-modern version by Hope

A new recording by British violinist Daniel Hope on Warner Classics may herald the end of the revolutionary early-music revival, begun in the 1970s.
Characterized by the use of gut strings and short bows, with minimal application of vibrato, the push to use so-called original instruments was as influential as the development of stereo. First in Bach and Handel, and later in Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, the once radical, and initially rackety, sound of period instruments has achieved respectability.

Daniel Hope might not be playing on gut strings, yet his performances of Bach's A minor and E major Violin Concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe are as stylish as any musicology maven could wish. He has Teflon technique and a sound to die for, yet this blissful recording is very much a collaboration. Led by Marieke Blankenstijn, the 18 musicians of the COE play with panache. Their tuning is impeccable, their phrasing rich, witty, grave or soulful, as required, coaxing Hope's long-limbed melodies and dashing figures to peaks of invention.

The use of modern concert pitch does not make the music seem over-bright, and there is no air of false formality. Suffice it to say that I have never before heard a recording where the players communicate such joy in this music, on gut or modern strings.
So, is this the end for “original instruments''? Hope's semi-modern Bach – a stylish performance regardless of whether his E string is metal-bound or not – may have sounded the death knell for old style, 1970s early music, with its erratic tuning, high ideals and shaky technique. I, for one, am optimistic.

Modern-instrument Bach may not be fashionable, but these alert, fresh accounts of much-recorded concertos have all the zing and brio we expect from period ensembles. Hope takes the outer fast movements at brisk tempi without sacrificing clarity of articulation...in the Double Concerto...they duet sensuously in the overlapping solo parts, while never overstepping the limits of taste and style. In the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, Hope pits his virtuosity against that of Jaime Martin’s flute and Kristian Bezuidenhout’s harpsichord in an exhilarating account of the most “soloistic” of Bach’s “concerti grossi”.

Hugh Canning

This is some of the freshest, liveliest Bach-playing I have heard...even though it is on modern instruments, this music-making is very much informed by historical performance practice.

Daniel Hope is a charismatic player who has an acute sense of how to energize Baroque music, and as well as playing with just the right sense of scale himself, he draws superb results from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at its most alert and stylish.

It is not only the swift speeds that provide so much vitality here, but also the way in which phrases are so excitingly shaped. Hope takes much the same approach to Bach's music as the outstanding period-instrument performers [Manze/Standage/Pinnock]...his playing is free and spontaneous. There's also imagination here in things like the choice of continuo instruments, with theorbo, harpsichord and organ...the results are immensely satisfying and the textures always have translucency along with delectable details of instrumental colour.

Then there's Hope's ornamentation: this is extensive and extremely effective - he plays decorations to the solo violin part with natural flair. While there is never any shortage of poetry in the slower music, the outer movements of the three violin concerti are superb, especially the dashing and - here - genuinely thrilling finales of all three. Again this is a performance of great stylishness and unstoppable but never relentless momentum.

The recorded sound is clear and warm...among modern-instrument versions, Daniel Hope's new disc would now be my first choice in the Bach violin concerti and I recommend it with the greatest enthusiasm.

Nigel Simeone

Though soloist Daniel Hope rightly gets star billing in this exquisite recording, honours should be shared with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Sensitively decorated, glowing of tone, and alert to the harmonic arguments, these are beautifully poised interpretations that breathe with the music.

A modern instruments recording that rivals, if not beats, period instruments for intimacy and elan.

Anna Picard