Dance! in Bloomington, MN

Violinist
Daniel Hope
's publicity for this 2024 release promotes it as "[t]racing the history of Western dance from medieval times to the 20th century." It is true that the double album includes music of many eras, from traditional pieces to the 20th century, but this formulation fails to capture the mood achieved here by the always crowd-pleasing
Hope
. All his selections are short, and for the most part, they jump across the centuries rather than being chronological.
both plays and conducts the
Zürcher Kammerorchester
, and the overall effect is kaleidoscopic, like one of those concerts where pieces follow one another as if in a medley, with lighting effects to match. A double album of short pieces may seem a lot, but this is
's point; he seeks to expose the variety of dance rhythms that course through Western classical music, in which dance is not usually thought to play a very significant role. The album is a great deal of fun, with
alternately picking up his violin and laying it aside and veering from Baroque dances to
Florence Beatrice Price
's jazzy "Ticklin' Toes" (it is good to hear her music showing up on non-U.S. releases). In the end, the energy in this big group of 42 pieces never flags. ~ James Manheim