Daniel Hope / 40 years of Sinfonia Varsovia

In his youth, Wojciech Kilar was seen as one of the Polish coryphaei of the most daring avant-garde. However, in the mid-1970s – to the surprise of audiences and critics – he simplified his musical language and turned to tradition, reverting to post-Romantic tonality. This transformation was heralded by the 1974 symphonic miniature Krzesany, a reference to highland folklore. In contrast, the serene, euphonious Orawa is a continuation of this trend. Kilar wrote it at a difficult time – in the mid-1980s, when Poland was immersed in the crisis and torpor of declining communism. For many artists at the time, artistic work was escapist in nature, so “idyllic” pieces were also created, moving away from dullness and hopelessness towards memories of simplicity, beauty and goodness, present in spiritual reflection and the beauty of nature. The author commented: “Orawa is the only piece in which I wouldn’t change a single note, though I have looked at it many times. [...] What is achieved in it is what I strive for – to be the best Kilar possible.”

Mieczysław Weinberg was born and received his first education in Warsaw. As a Polish Jew, he left the country in 1939, saving himself from the German onslaught, and after episodes of residence in Minsk and Tashkent, he found himself in Moscow. There he found himself in the social and artistic circle of Shostakovich, whom he considered his master and with whom he was united by a long-lasting friendship. Known and respected in the USSR, he went unnoticed in the country of his youth for a long time – although he himself never forgot Poland. In recent years, his music has been experiencing its belated renaissance upon Vistula. He was all too easily perceived as an epigone of Shostakovich, but the style of his music has retained a great deal of individuality, with an emotional layer closer to the nostalgia and melancholy of the late Russian Romantics than to Shostakovich’s frequent bitter irony and grotesque. Like most aspiring artists of the time on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain, the two artists mentioned above were painfully affected by Zhdanovshchina, an official state doctrine forcing composers to simplify their language and pay homage to trivially treated folklorism. 1948 was a particularly dramatic year in Weinberg’s life. At the time, the composer became the target of increasing Stalinist repression in a wave of struggle against “cosmopolitanism” and “formalism.” Was the Violin Concertino Op. 42, written at the time, to be such an attempt at compromising? Creating structurally simple and communicative music, but at the same time retaining the characteristics of an autonomous style and high compositional ambitions? We do not know the author’s opinion, and the work itself premiered more than half a century after its creation, already after the composer’s death. Upon its rediscovery, it gained considerable popularity, delighting with its mood of lyricism, the beauty of the violin cantilena, supported by a relatively simple but harmonically sophisticated accompaniment. The concise, emotion-saturated cadenza preceding the middle movement – an elegiac Adagio – makes a great impression. The final movement has the character of a nostalgic waltz-rondo, ending with a lively but still minor coda.

Andrzej Panufnik had been in exile in the UK since 1954, earning great recognition there. He developed his own highly individual style, characterized by a rich and original harmonic language, which he combined with a neoclassical fondness for clear forms, a predilection for expressive melodies and timbral euphony. All these qualities can be found in the Violin Concerto composed in 1971 at the request of the great Yehudi Menuhin. The son of the esteemed luthier Tomasz Panufnik recalled: “While composing for violin, I succumbed, I think, to the influence of my childhood memories – the smell of the wood my father used to build his instruments and my mother’s incessant playing – so that this piece became some kind of pilgrimage to the past and was inevitably filled with Polish atmosphere.” In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the composer experimented with a new sonic language, based on the three-note F-H-E cell with unusual melodic and harmonic possibilities, “almost magical,” as he said. It can also be heard in the concerto, but it did not become the main structural basis of the piece, precisely because of its somewhat retrospective nature. “I decided that first and foremost I needed to expose the violin as an instrument with a warm, expressive sound. I decided that I could afford to be flexible with the rules I had imposed on myself, applying them more or less strictly.” The limited interval material, as well as the avoidance of virtuosity, gives the impression of a certain sonic asceticism, while at the same time favoring the assumed goal, that is, to show the beauty of the violin’s timbre in its various registers. The virtues of the work and Menuhin’s superb interpretation contributed to the widespread popularization of the concerto, which is one of its creator’s most famous works.

The Symphony in C Major, K.551, Mozart’s last work of this genre, is commonly known as the Jupiter Symphony. There is some debate as to whom this nickname, indicating divine perfection and power (especially of the outer movements), comes from. It was certainly not given by the author; the title did not appear in editions until several decades after his death. The fact that the Symphony in C Major would prove to be the last in Mozart’s oeuvre caused Romantic commentators to speak of it with particular emphasis. This masterpiece undoubtedly deserves the highest admiration, but did Mozart really create it as “monumental”? Would he have included in such a conceived piece the charming banter that is the mysterious motif in the splendorous first movement – a quote from the aria buffa Un bacio di mano.... (A kiss on the hand)? The beginning of the mood-shifting Andante cantabile is shaped somewhat like an introduction to an opera aria and develops into a gorgeous, noble cantilena, only to abruptly change to a gloomy character, heralded by the key of C minor and mysterious dissonances. A courtly and exquisite minuet is followed by an impressive finale, which has received a multitude of commentaries, interpretations and analyses. Here, Mozart combines the general plan of the sonata form with the means of polyphonic, imitative shaping, creatively developing the ideas of the Haydns (Joseph, but also Michael) and anticipating the late achievements of Beethoven. We can be sure that the thirty-two-year-old Mozart did not write this finale as a “farewell” to the world of symphonies, a testament, as his Kunst der Fuge. However, since fate dictated that it should turn out to be his opus ultimum (last work) of the genre – it was perceived as such. After all, it is certainly – intended or not – a tribute to the art of the beloved masters: Bach, Händel and the Haydn brothers.

– Piotr Maculewicz

Violinist Daniel Hope has been performing worldwide as a soloist for more than 30 years. He is celebrated for his musical creativity and his commitment to humanitarian causes.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, Hope travels the globe as both chamber musician and soloist, collaborating with leading orchestras and conductors. Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra since 2016, in 2018 he took up the same position with San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra. In 2019, he became Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche Dresden, and he has been President of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn since 2020, succeeding Joseph Joachim and Kurt Masur.

Hope is a welcome guest in famous concert halls and at renowned festivals from New York's Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, from Salzburg to Aspen and Tanglewood, from Schleswig-Holstein and Gstaad to the BBC Proms in London. He works regularly with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Iván Fischer and Christian Thielemann, as well as with the major symphony orchestras in Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and many others. He works closely with the leading composers of our time, such as Alfred Schnittke, György Kurtág, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Tōru Takemitsu and Tan Dun.

His discography includes more than 30 albums, which have received awards including the German Record Critics’ Prize, the Diapason d'Or of the Year, the Edison Classical Award and the Prix Caecilia and are regularly acclaimed by the press (New York Times: "one of the best albums of the year”; Gramophone: “top choice of all available recordings”).

Hope is a passionate chamber musician and was a member of the Beaux Arts Trio for several years. His artistic versatility is also evident in projects with artists such as Klaus Maria Brandauer, Zakir Hussain, Sebastian Koch, Iris Berben, Mia Farrow and Sting, and as a radio and television moderator. A documentary titled Daniel Hope: The Sound of Life was released in North America, Australia and Europe in 2017. Every week since 2016, Hope has been presenting the radio show "Personally with Daniel Hope" on WDR3; he has also written four books, all of which have been published by Rowohlt Verlag and have become bestsellers. He writes for the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and for his series "Hope@9pm" invites guests from culture and politics to a salon at the Berlin Konzerthaus. In support of other artists, Hope created and presented over 150 episodes of music and talk in the Hope@Home livestream series broadcast by ARTE during the 2020 lockdown, hosting artists from Robert Wilson to Lang. With the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, he initiated several benefit concerts with pianist Alexey Botvinov. Hope studied violin with Zakhar Bron, Itzhak Rashkovsky and Felix Andrievsky and completed his training at London’s Royal Academy of Music. He worked closely with his mentor Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he gave numerous concerts. Hope holds the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and was awarded the European Culture Prize in 2015. He lives with his family in Berlin and plays the "Ex-Lipiński" Guarneri del Gesù from 1742, which is generously made available to him.