The serenade in the Baroque era was an actual functional genre of music, played outdoors for the pleasure of assembled guests. Serenades were light but not insubstantial pieces, and as musical language changed, the serenade persisted, offering, in the words of annotator Corinne Holtz, "islands of happiness" among weightier pieces. The examples here by Tchaikovsky and Elgar, composers not known for smiles, are ideal, and violinist/conductor Daniel Hope and the Zürcher Kammerorchester catch the lovely balance between late Romantic Russian melody and Classical forms that has made the Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48, so perennially popular. Tchaikovsky and Elgar were very different composers, but in Hope's hands, their serenades fit together perfectly. Most striking, perhaps, is the Mozart serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, which is placed at the end. By the time Mozart wrote his serenade, the form had already outgrown its outdoor origins and become concert music, and Hope presents it from a 19th century perspective; his reading is unusually vigorous, not delicately Mozartian, but in this context, it works beautifully. As a whole, the program is genuinely joyous. Deutsche Grammophon's sound from the ZKO-Haus in Zurich is over-resonant for music that still basically had chamber dimensions, but that is about the only quibble regarding a thoroughly enjoyable outing from Hope.
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