Peace After Marriage (2013)

The LSO’s magnificent string sound is world renowned and this recording marks the LSO Live debut of the LSO String Ensemble, led by LSO leader Roman Simovic, who directs a performance of the much loved Tchaikovsky "Serenade for Strings", together with Bartók’s "Divertimento". The Serenade has proved to be one of Tchaikovsky’s most enduringly popular works, a piece he described as being “passionately in love with”. Inspired in part by Mozart, its elegant music weaves Russian folk-song, and a fine example of the composer’s beloved Waltz, with an elegiac musical centrepiece. Also featured on this release is Bartók’s "Divertimento", one of the composer’s last works before leaving Europe for exile in the US. The Divertimento is a highly original work in its own unique idiom, contrasting two buoyant and light-hearted movements with a sombre Adagio in four sections.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of modern times, combining technical virtuosity, beauty of tone, and exceptional charisma. She has nurtured the classical music scene through her own Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, which has commissioned new works and fostered the careers of younger violinists. Mutter was born in the German town of Rheinfelden, near the Swiss border, on June 29, 1963. She took up the piano at five, and the violin shortly after. By nine she was advancing rapidly and had begun lessons with Aïda Stucki. Mutter appeared in recital at the Lucerne Festival when she was 13 and was heard there by legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan.