Daniel Hope Review – Music for a New Century

“A cross-section of composition in the postmodern age” reads the brochure: This album brings together four compelling pieces by contemporaries such as Philip Glass and Tan Dun. Sensuality, atmosphere or rhythmic energy – depending on the work in different mixes – make this music directly accessible. In the Glass Piano Concerto, soloist Alexei Botvinov and the New Century Chamber Orchestra and its conductor Daniel Hope unleash many emotions in the simple gears of music. It has depth and brilliance. Hope picks up the violin for Tan Donne’s Double Concerto. At first, pulses and colors are concentrated like surgically applied lasers, before moving surfaces take hold in the next two movements, with excursions into Chinese traditions and jazz-rock. Whether it’s pathos in Turnage, whether it’s brilliance in Heggie, it’s pretty impressive.

Music for a new century
Glass: Piano Concerto No. 3, Don: Double Concerto, Trenge: Elegy, Hughie: “Joyful” Overture

Daniel Hope (violin and conductor), Alexei Botvinov (piano), New Century Chamber Orchestra
German gramophone

Daniel Hope

Born in 1973, Daniel Hope began playing the violin at the age of four. His family moved from South Africa via Paris to England, where he then studied at the Royal College of Music. He took lessons from Zakhar Brun and … on