Anne-Sophie Mutter
© Japan Art Association/The Sankei Shimbun
violin
This was a performance of pulseless poise, whistle-clean harmonics and old-fashioned, cantabile glamour. The Times, November 2016 (Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the LPO under Robin Ticciati at Royal Festival Hall)
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: for more than 40 years she has been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor and visionary. The four-time Grammy Award-winner is equally committed to the future of music: she has given world premieres of 28 works – Jörg Widmann, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm and John Williams have all composed for her. Furthermore, she dedicates herself to numerous benefit projects and to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite: in 1997 she founded the Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. Since 2011 she has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, ‘Mutter’s Virtuosi’. Anne-Sophie Mutter’s 2020 concert calendar features performances in Asia, Europe and North America. As part of the Beethoven 250th anniversary year, the violinist spotlights some of the works that make Beethoven immortal. In these concerts, the bridge from the avant-gardist of the 1790s to the present day is built by Jörg Widmann, whose new string quartet, Study on Beethoven, Anne-Sophie Mutter commissioned; the work is dedicated to her and received its world premiere in Tokyo last month. Mutter returns to Southbank Centre on 26 March, when, as part of a string quartet comprising London Philharmonic Orchestra Principals, she will give the work’s UK premiere at Queen Elizabeth Hall, alongside Beethoven’s String Trio No. 5 and the ‘Harp’ Quartet. All proceeds from this concert will be dedicated to Crisis, the national charity for homeless people.
Anne-Sophie Mutter began 2020 by performing the Adagio from Bach’s Concerto for Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo, BWV 1042, with the Vienna Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov, celebrating the 150-year anniversary of the Musikverein building. Later in January she returned to the Vienna Philharmonic, this time under multiple Oscar-winner John Williams, in a programme entitled ‘Across the Stars’ featuring music from Star Wars, Schindler’s List, The Geisha, Harry Potter, Dracula and Munich. Most of these compositions had been re-arranged by Williams especially for Anne-Sophie Mutter. On 21 January Mutter embarked upon her 2020 Beethoven anniversary concerts in the USA, giving several recitals with pianist Lambert Orkis, taking these two musicians into the 32nd year of their artistic collaboration. Their recital programme for the Beethoven jubilee also sees the duo perform in China, Germany, the UK, Japan, Austria and Taiwan. Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim celebrate the Beethoven anniversary by recording the composer’s Triple Concerto. Pairing the Concerto with the Seventh Symphony, this new Deutsche Grammophon album also marks the 20th birthday of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. The album is set for release on 20 March 2020, 40 years after the appearance of the legendary Triple Concerto recording made by Mutter and Ma under Herbert von Karajan. Anne-Sophie Mutter has been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and numerous other honours.
London Philharmonic Orchestra | 7
