Anne Sophie Mutter

August 2002 witnessed a celebrity marriage not forecast in the crystal ball of any tabloid columnist; that of youthful, 40-ish violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter to 72-year-old pianist/conductor/composer André Previn. While their union may have set gossips' tongues to wag, in purely musical terms it is a winning combination for the most part. The Violin Concerto "Anne-Sophie" is an André Previn work completed in March 2001 and intended for Mutter.

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.

Universally considered as one of the greatest violinists of our time, Anne-Sophie Mutter’s stunning and multi-faceted music-making extends across masterworks from the full breadth of the violin repertoire. Mutterissimo – The Art of Anne-Sophie Mutter is a selection of highlights from her discography, personally picked by Mutter herself, bringing together recordings that date for the most part from the last twenty years.

Universally considered as one of the greatest violinists of our time, Anne-Sophie Mutter’s stunning and multi-faceted music-making extends across masterworks from the full breadth of the violin repertoire. Mutterissimo – The Art of Anne-Sophie Mutter is a selection of highlights from her discography, personally picked by Mutter herself, bringing together recordings that date for the most part from the last twenty years.

Veteran violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is not performing the usual Beethoven or Mozart repertoire here, but branching out to embrace new music commissioned for her. Along for the ride are the excellent New York Philharmonic under the baton of Michael Francis for the first Rihm work, and then under Alan Gilbert for the Currier piece, along with contrabassist Roman Patkoló. Lichtes Spiel (for violin and small orchestra) is indeed a "light game," with layered voices in the strings.

Even though Anne-Sophie Mutter recorded most of the great violin concertos early in her career, working closely with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, she hadn't recorded the Violin Concerto in A minor of Antonín Dvorák. This 2013 recording with Manfred Honeck and the Berlin Philharmonic fills that gap in her legacy, and this is an exceptionally bright and passionate performance, well worth the wait.

John Williams In Vienna’ featuring the legendary composer’s debut concert with the Vienna Philharmonic will be released in August 2020.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first Bach recording for DG couples his Concertos BWV 1041 and BWV 1042 with the world-premiere recording of the Concerto commissioned by her from Sofia Gubaidulina, the Russian composer who regards Bach as her greatest source of inspiration. Mutter gave the premiere performance of Gubaidulina’s Concerto at the 2007 Lucerne Festival and will record the work with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev at the beginning of 2008.