By Brooklynn Wong
When a violin virtuoso, a highly-acclaimed European orchestra ensemble, and a 300-year-old well-loved piece of music all come together, high-quality entertainment and a tasteful production are almost inevitable.
Remarkable is not much of a stretch for describing Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra’s performance at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on March 21.
The night was all about “The Four Seasons,” as the first half of the performance was Vivaldi’s famous “Four Seasons” in its original form, followed in the second half by a short piece by Swiss composer Fabian Müller, then Max Richter’s “Four Seasons Recomposed.”
The state-of-the-art Segerstrom Concert Hall was a perfect setting, with its acoustics making for good sound and its beautiful appearance contributing to an ambience of high class and culture.
The Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall was the site of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra’s March 21 performance.
Segerstrom Concert Hall
The Philharmonic Society of Orange County presented the orchestra.
The Zurich Chamber Orchestra has been around since 1945 and was making its Philharmonic Society debut.
Daniel Hope is an award-winning British violinist who has played as a soloist around the world over the past 25 years and began serving as Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra last season.
He and the ensemble of about 20 musicians took the stage.
To introduce each change in “seasons,” Hope read the accompanying sonnet that Vivaldi included in his folio with his music.
The familiar and rousing Spring movement began the concert, followed by summer—a demanding piece that was applauded mightily.
He told a story of Vivaldi himself, having taught violin at a Venetian orphanage, where his female students staged Sunday concerts, and a visitor wrote, “There is nothing so charming as to see a young and pretty nun in her white robe, with a sprig of pomegranate blossoms over her ear, leading the orchestra and beating time with all the grace and precision imaginable.”
Hope’s readings and interjections, a potentially clunky addition, actually did much to add to the evening, with the poetic words contributing even more to the artistry of the night.
The “Autumn” sonnet, for example, in short, reads:
“Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances,
the pleasure of a bountiful harvest.
And fired up by Bacchus’s liquor,
many end their revelry in sleep…
The hunters emerge at the new dawn,
and with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting.
The beast flees and they follow its trail;
terrified and tired of the great noise
of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens
languidly to flee, but harried, dies.”
Winter rounded out the concert’s first half, with its familiar balance of melody and jagged fragments.
The majority of the second half was made up of prolific composer Max Richter’s take on “The Four Seasons.” Hope explained that several years ago, Richter called him and proposed creating somewhat of a new version of Vivaldi’s concert. Hope joked that the original certainly needed no improvement, but that Richter’s reasoning was that the music had become too familiar. It was used in commercials, as elevator music, and over the phone while on hold. Richter said he needed to distance himself from the music a bit to fall in love with it again.
Thus he created “The Four Seasons Recomposed” in 2011, with roughly 80% of Vivaldi’s original music gone, but the most distinct movements remaining and expanded upon.
The result is an absolutely beautiful update and cut-and-paste of the original with a modern, cinematic, and subtly electronic sound.
Hope was on the original recording of the album as primary artist and solo violinist. Music from the album has appeared on recent productions including Netflix’s “The Crown.”
Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra played it beautifully. Audience members were noticeably moved.
And at the show’s end? A more than sixty-second standing ovation.
Antonio Vivaldi, Daniel Hope, and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra all brought forth a gem to Orange County that was orchestral performance at its finest.
