/ discography at a glance

Even Yehudi Menuhin, whose explorations opened new vistas of violinistic collaboration and set the instrument’s Western repertoire in a worldwide context, never undertook so compendious a project as has his former collaborator and disciple, Daniel Hope.

Hope colors a program of Indian ragas, colorful exotica by Bartók, Falla, and Ravel, and an allusive student work by Alfred Schnittke, with the spiky timbres of Indian instruments and the luthéal, a piano with stops that produce the lute-like sonorities for which it’s named. But the project’s scope pales in comparison to Daniel Hope’s own range of virtuosity and stylistic absorption.

Moses saw the promised land; Aaron led into it. Menuhin realized and revealed the violin’s diversity and breadth; Daniel Hope has comprehended it in a single, integrated personality.

Ravi Shankar worked out his two ragas for his collaboration with Menuhin in the 1960s, according to Hope’s notes (artists’ recent penchant for writing their own notes has reawakened interest in the booklets they grace); Hope and Gaurav Mazumdar recreated these by ear with the aid of Menuhin’s notes. Hope’s swells and slides here and rhythmic élan there communicate the music’s urgency and direction and should transmit some of its musical sense as well, even to listeners unfamiliar with its idiom, a sense that subsequent listening must more thoroughly explicate.

But generally, Hope’s soaring style, with its sweeping dynamic contrasts combined with razor-sharp attacks informs the breathtaking sense of panache with which he dispatches such chestnuts as Ravel’s Tzigane , Falla’s Suite populaire espagnole , and Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances . In these, he’s employed the luthéal either entirely (Tzigane) or in part (and with particularly striking effect, in Falla’s “Nana” and in Bartók’s “Sash Dance”), stiffening these with textural and timbral starch. Hope assigns Schnittke’s sonata to a period in which the composer’s study of Ravel, to whom the work owes so much of its manner if not its matter, had been forbidden in the Soviet Union. The faith of Schnittke’s widow, who entrusted the sonata to Hope, turns out to have been well placed, although like Bartók’s earlier, Brahmsian Sonata for Violin, this derivative work may never enter fully into the canon of the composer’s œvre , even despite Hope’s sympathetic insinuating championship.

The engineers have reproduced the violinist and his collaborators larger than life – in the same scale, that is, as that of the performances themselves. As a result of that scale, and of the project’s ambitious breadth, comparisons seem almost irrelevant, as would comparing performances by Sandor Lakatos as “King of Gypsy Fiddlers” with those of mainstream violinists in the same repertoire. But in this case, Hope grafts the exotic into what we’ve all come to think of as the main trunk; and in doing so, he’s achieved impressive results. In addition, he seems to have developed the kernel of a distinctive violinistic personality that unifies this extravagant diversity, and his playing reveals even more far-fetched associations, such as surprising relationships between, for example, Shankar’s flurries of détaches and those in Heirich Biber’s sonatas from so different a time and place.

Urgently recommended, even to the unadventurous.

Robert Maxham

Daniel Hope is a young British violinist with an ingratiatingly warm, Old World sound and new ideas. New ideas and big ones.

He takes as his starting point for "East meets West" (Warner Classics) Menuhin's collaboration with Ravi Shankar in the 60's, respectfully recreating two ragas Shankar wrote for that duo to begin and end this recital. But what really makes it a fascinating disc is what comes in between. Ravel's Tzigane is accompanied by a Luthéal, and piano with various percussion effects to make it sound gypsy-ish. Long lost, the Luthéal has now been recreated, and it sounds delicate and beautiful.

Hope also offers works by Bartók and De Falla arranged for violin and luthéal as well as the first recording of a student violin sonata by Alfred Schnittke, written in the style of Ravel.

Mark Swed

Vibrant, exciting performances as another violinist ventures into Eastern traditions “…technically brilliant, highly engaging performances. Daniel Hope gives the Bartók set an exceptionally convincing and incisive reading and the Schnittke Sonata deserves the attention of these impressive interpreters for its first recording.

The Ragas were written for Menuhin and Shankar himself. Hope and Gaurav Mazumdar transcribed them from the original LP, and revive them in vibrant, exciting performances with marvellous support from the superb Asok Chakraborty.

Barry Witherden

During the free-wheeling 1960s, Yehudi Menuhin surprised some violin fans by performing with Ravi Shankar. Menuhin's protege, Daniel Hope, renews that partnership in East Meets West, a Warner Classics release that combines two of Shankar's Ragas with music by Bartok, Falla, Ravel and Schnittke.

The Shankar pieces open and close this superb recital. Partnered by Gaurav Mazumdar, one of Shankar's students, Hope plays the Ragas with vigorous attack and full, lustrous tone. The two soloists are boldly supported by Asok Chakraborty on the sitar.

Hope fills out the rest of the program with works influenced by gypsy music. Ravel's Tzigane finds Hope in potent form. Digging into the opening phrases, he plays with a blend of keen control and vigorous abandon.

Hope finds a wealth of tonal colors for Bartok's Six Romanian Folkdances. He rounds out this important release with a magisterial account of Schnittke's Sonata for Violin and Piano.

Robert Baxter

Daniel Hope is not only one of the most technically accomplished of the younger generation of classical violinists, but one of the cleverest. This programme sets two works by Ravi Shankar which combine elements of Western and Indian music with works from the mainstream of the European classical tradition - Bartók, Ravel, Falla, Schnittke - and which draws on that earlier encounter between Western and Indian sources, gypsy music.

His performances are almost ideal, combining a real sensitivity to structure with a sense that this is music that is supposed to be purely enjoyable; there is fire here as well as intelligence.

Roz Caveney

Another musician working along parallel lines is the violinist Daniel Hope, whose latest recital East Meets West takes up where Yehudi Menuhin left off with two raga compositions by Ravi Shankar, his collaborators for the occasion Gaurav Mazumdar (sitar), Asok Chakraborty (tabla) and Gilda Sebastian (tanpura).

But while Menuhin could sound stiff-jointed in Indian music, Hope takes to his role like a duck to water, edging around the music's curling contours with enviable ease. The same disc includes an early Schnittke Sonata and, most interestingly, three works using a modified piano called a luthéal, the instrument that Ravel had in mind when he wrote his Tzigane Rhapsody.

Hope's account of the Ravel is coltish in the extreme, the lutheal's cimbalom-like sonorities making fresh sense of the keyboard part, whereas in Falla's Suite populaire espagnole it sounds more like a guitar.

Rob Cowan

Daniel Hope has lovingly reconstructed the Raga Piloo and Raga Tilang by Shankar...to hear two such gifted musicians from utterly contrasted musical traditions interacting at this sort of level is a rare treat. Add to this the world première recording of Schnittke’s 1955 sonata and stunning performances of Falla, Ravel and Bartok, and it’s rosettes all round.

Julian Haylock

Fresh from winning Best Young Performer at this year’s Classical Brit awards, Daniel Hope has released East meets West...the fruits of his labours are clear in his natural, organic-sounding performances in the two Shankar Ragas...the fast paced rhythms that follow are both infectious and brilliant.

Ravel’s long-forgotten Luthéal makes an appealing appearance in Tzigane... Hope demonstrates virtuosity and real passion in equal measures... It’s an ambitious venture, but Hope pulls it off with characteristic flair in this quirky, well-recorded and rewarding disc.

Catherine Nelson

As a straight-up player, Daniel Hope can stand beside any number of fine young violinists today. As a repertoire innovator, he stands apart.

This original program explores the intersection of the occidental and oriental worlds, most obviously through a reconstruction of three of the famous jam sessions of his master Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar (who is proudly represented by his own disciple, Gaurav Mazumdar). Elsewhere we have gypsy blood.

Tzigane is done with some new twists and turns and with Sebastian Knauer playing a reconstructed luthéal, the ill-starred instrument for which Ravel originally scored the showpiece. This piano-with-stops is heard also in Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances and Falla’s Six Popular Spanish Songs (as transcribed, quite winningly, for violin). The only pure western item is Alfred Schnittke’s previously unrecorded Violin Sonata of 1955, a melodious, conservative two-movement piece of real documentary and musical interest.

It all makes a CD worth owning.

Arthur Kaptainis

Daniel Hope and his Indian colleagues play extremely well...Hope is formidable and stylish...and impressive recital.

Nigel Simeone

Shankar and Menuhin’s experiment reprised successfully. Into Menuhin’s shoes slips the brilliant young violinist Daniel Hope, and in Shankar’s slippers is Gaurav Mazumdar, who recreates the music with the Pandit’s blessing.

Hope and Mazumdar have reconstructed the music from Menuhin’s notes and by ear from the recordings, and they performed it live last year. It was thrilling and it’s great to have it on disc.

Simon Broughton