Music : East Meets West
from: Warner Classics
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0825646132928
Label: Warner Classics
Manufacturer: Warner Classics
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Warner Classics
Release Date: September 14, 2004
Sales Rank: 115251
Studio: Warner Classics
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Daniel Hope is an excellent violinist, very much in tune with today's tastes and fashions, as reflected in his remarkably swift rise to prominence. His technical mastery lets him exploit all the resources of his instrument; his adventurousness leads him to explore the music of many lands. However, the multifarious colors of his tonal palette threaten to overwhelm the music and become an end in themselves; to prove his stylistic versatility, he resorts to excess and exaggeration. Yet on this recording, which features works influenced by folk-music and inviting an improvisatory approach, his playing is strangely unspontaneous, planned, and unimaginative. The program is flanked by two ragas by Ravi Shankar, accompanied by Indian instruments, carefully reconstructed from recordings of Yehudi Menuhin, for whom they were written and with whom Hope was closely associated. They sound beautiful and thoroughly authentic. Recorded here for the first time is a recently discovered sonata by Schnittke, written when he was 20 and studying at the Moscow Conservatory. Tonal, harmonically and structurally conventional but not really derivative, it is full of strong contrasts and abrupt shifts of dynamics, mood and character, which the players bring out very convincingly. For the rest of the program, Hope's fine pianist plays a luthéal, described as an attachment to the piano capable of producing exotic sounds resembling harmonics, lute, cymbalon, harp and flute; it is claimed that Ravel originally wrote the accompaniment to his Tzigane for it. Indeed, on this recording it recreates the orchestral colors much better than the piano. Unfortunately, Hope attacks his part with unbridled ferocity rather than gypsy abandon. Bartók's Romanian Dances are equally excessive: either slow and sentimental or rough and scratchy, and de Falla's Suite populair espagnole lacks grace and charm. Hope recently joined the Beaux Arts Trio, becoming its youngest member ever; his first recording with the group, of works by Mendelssohn and Dvorak, has just been released. --Edith Eisler
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
East meets West? The title indicates an homage to the historical recording made in 1966 by Menuhin and Shankar, "West meets East" (West Meets East: The Historic Shankar/Menuhin Sessions). In my review of that disc, I commented that the title was appropriate, as it was "more a case of the Western instrument and player trying to blend into an alien tradition, than the reverse". With Daniel Hope, despite the reversal of the title, you don't get Eastern composers or instruments trying to blend into a Western tradition - Japanese Buddhist monks playing Elvis Presley, Parsifal on a gamelan orchestra? - but rather an exploration of some points of encounter between Western and Eastern musical traditions.
On the one hand you get the very same pieces that Menuhin and Shankar played together, both on that 1966 disc (Swara-Kakali) and on the 1968 sequel (Raga Piloo, from West Meets East, Vol. 2). The encounter of Menuhin and Shankar was in fact a frustratingly short one: only one out of the three pieces from the 1966 disc and one out of the two in '68 had them together. When you think of it, Daniel Hope's decision to play these pieces is somewhat paradoxical, as these Menuhin-Shankar encounters were by nature improvisation-derived and un-notated, meant to be one-offs. Together with Shankar's disciple Gaurav Mazumdar, Hope has "reconstructed these works by ear". The notes may be the same, yet the interpretations are not: Hope is more brooding and plangent in the introductory ... Read More
Rating:  -
When I was writing an essay about "Tzigane" in my blog, I met this CD. This is the first time I ever heard the original version of Tzigane. I bought it immediately.
Although this is a violinist Daniel Hope's album, the main character here seems to be luthéal, a piano-like instrument that sounds reminds you, if you are a lover of gypsy music, a cimbalom. He plays Fella and Bartók also with the instrument.
"Tzigane" by Ravel has been my favorite piece, my most favorite piece of Ravel. And after listening the Hope's playing, I found that the piece is definitely written to accompany with the luethéal, neither a piano nor an orchestra I always felt the later part of "Tzigane", after accompanying with the piano, that sounds are not like I expected. But here I listened to the original version, that made a sense at all.
Other thing that surprise me is a suite by Falla. I never got interested in Falla pieces but "Suite populaire espagnole" attracted me. Especially the second piece "Nana", I thought it is written by a contemporary composer.
Romanian Folk Dances by Bartók here was not surprise but a fine performance. Hope plays them as if he is a gypsy violinist not a classic concert violinist. In my impression, Bart&243k's pieces were not as effective by using luthéal as Ravel and Falla.
He plays also a violin sonata of Shunittke, strangely the sonata sounds the closest to Classical Music in the album. I don't get well why ... Read More
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