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Stories   >   Violinist.com 'For the Record' features Daniel Hope, Alexey Botvinov - Schnittke Works for Violin and Piano

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Violinist.com 'For the Record' features Daniel Hope, Alexey Botvinov - Schnittke Works for Violin and Piano

Posted: February 5, 2021

Laurie Niles writes.....Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening!

British violinist Daniel Hope first fell in love with Schnittke's music as a teenager, before getting to know the German-Soviet composer personally through a series of meetings and conversations in the early 1990s. Recorded with Ukrainian pianist Alexey Botvinov, a celebrated Schnittke interpreter, Hope's program ranges from the composer's immediately accessible Polka and Tango to his complex First Violin Sonata, the work that first ignited the Hope's passion for his music. "The First Sonata is a work of extremes, and I think that was part of what fascinated me. Each movement is like an encapsulation of a musical ideal: the first is Schnittke's own take on, and dislike of, serial music; the second revisits his obsession with folk music; the third brandishes a blatant quotation of Shostakovich's Piano Trio; and the finale presents his amalgamation of the Latin American ‘La cucaracha' theme with all of the previously gathered material. It's exhilarating both to perform and to listen to." 

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