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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor, Op. 82 - Elgar |
| 2. Elegy for Violin and Piano - Finzi |
| 3. Sonata for Violin and Piano - Walton |
Product Description
BBC Music Magazine
Daniel Hope's excursion into early 20th-century English violin repertoire offers a strange mixture of works. There is the Elgar Violin Sonata of 1914, unarguably a piece of real stature that carries as much emotional weight as any of the symphonies. Hope delivers this piece with a clear yet rich tone - nothing is allowed to be immersed in an indulgent excess of bloom - and, helped by his pianist Simon Mulligan's thoughtful and substantial contributions, with a sure sense of shape and weight. And there is an equally fine, unhurried reading of William Walton's still neglected, deeply serious, complex and often boldly spare Violin Sonata of 1947-9, a work for which Hope expresses special admiration, boldly placing it above the Elgar on his own Aristotelian ladder of excellence. (Many would question the validity of any such chalk-and-cheese comparison.) But in between comes Gerald Finzi's Elegy of 1940, a work surely not half as serene as Hope's notes suggest. For all its admirable qualities, it lacks the import of either of the other works, so that the recital seems in consequence to sag a little in its middle. Yet that should not deter those who want a young man's vision of the Elgar or the Walton from investing in this version. The choice otherwise, even for the Elgar, is surprisingly sparse, and Hope and Mulligan prove to be strong rivals to my benchmark recording for that work, Nigel Kennedy's 1985 account with Peter Pettinger.
Performance *****
Sound ****
© BBC Music Magazine 2001
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why not wander down the byeways,
This review is from: Elgar & Walton - Violin Sonatas (Audio CD)
This recording contains music unlikely to be encountered by those listeners content to stick to the well known output of three of our most illustrious English composers. Stay off of the High Street for a while and wander into the back alleys and you will hear a different side to all three. Daniel Hope surely does justice to the music he clearly loves and understands. Top notch recording. Just a shame about the cover.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three Rarely Heard Works for Violin and Piano,
By Grady Harp - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Elgar & Walton - Violin Sonatas (Audio CD)
Violinist Daniel Hope and Pianist Simon Mulligan are a formidable team. Their approach to any repertoire is full-blooded and passionate, even in these rarely heard works. Theirs is a chemistry that comes across on recordings extremely well.
Elgar's Sonata for violin & piano in E minor, Op. 82 further demonstrates that this composer is unduly neglected except for a few works. The sonata is brilliantly written and is demanding in its outer movements, yet in the inner movement, Romance, it is as ethereal as anything Elgar ever wrote. Gerald Finzi's brief but exquisite Elegy for violin & piano in F major is a work that should find its way into recitals more often. Nothing spectacular as far as execution demands, but just simply beautiful melodic arches, here caressed by Hope's warm golden tone and echoed by Mulligan's attentive nuances. The recital concludes with another rarity, William Walton's Sonata for Violin and Piano, a work of fine construction and invention that, like the Elgar, once again proves that the music of Walton is too often shelved instead of performed. Hope and Mulligan shine in this testing work, meeting the aggressive attacks securely and seeking the plaintive moments with equal care. It is a sonata worth of many repeated hearings. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, February 06 |
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