Sophie Hall

The music on this EP inhabits a particular corner of the bounteous repertory of characteristic pieces for violin and piano. Short without being slight, these miniatures are vibrant and emotive, getting to the heart of the matter with freshness and originality, and sharing a rich yet restrained harmonic language which is identifiably English in character.

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.

Anne-Sophie Mutter performs all of Mozart's mature Violin Sonatas in these films from Munich's Gasteig concert hall. "… vital, dynamic playing with a wide range of colours … a real sense of the music's melancholy and intellectual depths … from the great violinist" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). "Such was the ease of Mutter's and Orkis's dispatch of every opening movement that the oasis at the heart of each sonata became a place of real refreshment" (The Times).

With each season soprano Sophie Bevan grows in artistic stature and when taking breaks from her distinguished operatic career, she has always felt supremely comfortable performing songs. Her enduring partnership with Sebastian Wybrew began as students at the Royal College of Music and this, their debut release on Wigmore Hall Live, captures her beguiling artistry and astonishing vocal gifts.