Anne Sophie Mutter

Deutsche Grammophon's Simply Anne-Sophie is touted as "a unique collection of Anne-Sophie Mutter's incomparable Deutsche Grammophon recordings," it is simply one of several – Mutter Modern, Romance, and The Great Violin Concertos are among others Deutsche Grammophon has compiled from its extensive Mutter holdings from over the years. Simply Anne-Sophie has a greater chronological range than its predecessors as its earliest entries date from 1992 recordings made for the hit disc Carmen-Fantaisie and stretches through to some selections from Mutter Mozart: Violin Concertos, recorded at Abbey Road in 2005.

"Stupendous brilliance, breathless virtuosity. Anne-Sophie Mutter's Virtuosi thrilled at the Vienna Musikverein." (Die Presse) In June 2023, star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter gave an impressive concert in Vienna with her Virtuosi ensemble. Based on this, a varied album has now been created, with music by Antonio Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Joseph Bologne, André Previn and John Williams. "Growing up, I'm on the trail of storytellers," Mutter says of her work with the Virtuosi, a rotating ensemble of current and former Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation scholarship holders.

This is a live recording, made at a pair of concerts in May, and ‘live’ is undoubtedly the word for it. All the performances have an improvisatory quality, interpretative decisions seemingly made before your very ears. At the beginning of the Prokofiev it is as though Mutter and Orkis, realising that the audience in the Beethovensaal are already uncommonly silent and attentive, had decided after a quick glance at each other to begin the Sonata almost confidingly, with quiet tenderness and muted colour.

This is a very welcome DVD release of an important series of concerts. Anne-Sophie Mutter, as she explains in the documentary, gave up a year of her life to concentrate solely on playing and recording the Beethoven Violin Sonatas in a series of concerts world wide - a luxury, she admits, afforded to few musicians. These performances come from the Paris cycle and are remarkably fresh. From the Haydnesque early sonatas to the altogether more challenging later sonatas, particularly a magnificent 'Kreutzer', these are performances that hint neither at over-preparedness nor over-familiarity. There is real spontaneity in many of these performances and a real sense of partnership between these superlative artists. Mutter is happy to allow Orkis to take the spotlight (and in the case of the op.23 dictate the development of the work). In every one of these sonatas there is ample proof that Mutter and Orkis are working for Beethoven and not for themselves. (Marc Bridle)

We're celebrating with a unique deluxe package that has everything. It's a box unlike anything you have seen before. A stunning, blow-you-away, multi-coloured object made of high-quality, transparent, frosted injection-moulded acrylic. "The complete musician" Box comprises three separate elements: * A solid, heavyweight base in translucent red, including a white CD "bin" to hold the 40 albums * A detachable green "book-shelf" that holds the BOOK (see info below) – with an embossed metal DG cartouche on its side * Bright yellow cover that envelops the whole package, with etched ASM35 logo * In addition, a wrap-around info-sheet will be set under the shrink-wrap on the side of the box – it will fall away when the shrink-wrap is opened.

Anne-Sophie Mutter has always been a superlative violinist with an imposing sound and technique that command attention. As she has progressed her career she has shown a growing reluctance to restrain her interpretations, and this 2008 Mendelssohn recording is evidence that as she progresses in her now-mature career she is becoming more and more assertive in that direction.

Ms. Mutter makes the violin sing in this fine collection of violin concertos recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic. Ms. Mutter was discovered by Herbert von Karajan at age 13, declared by him as "the greatest musical prodigy since the young Menuhin" and played with the Berlin Philharmonic as a teenager. The two Mozart concertos were recorded when she was only 15. The other concertos were recorded before she was twenty years old. My favorite is the Mendelssohn concerto. Ms. Mutter plays its haunting theme with elegance,flair and fire. Her passion and precision are evident through the difficult passages. Married to conductor Andre Previn, who wrote a violin concerto for her, Ms. Mutter never fails to intrigue her audience, making her vioin sing with colorful, soulful voices.