On the evening of March 17th, Anne-Sophie Mutter, a violinist who returned to the NCPA, which was highly anticipated by her fans and she was accompanied by pianist Lambert Orkis. They delivered a recital after a five-year absence. The two artists jointly presented classic string music composed by famous classical composers including Mozart, Schubert, Clara Schumann and Respighi, captivating the audience with their pure and passionate interpretations.
Anne-Sophie Mutter, who entered the classical music scene at the age of 13, was touted as a “Musical Genius” by Maestro Karajan for her performance skills and amazing music comprehension. In the 48 years that followed, she has worked with world-renowned symphony orchestras and conductors, leaving her charming silhouette and instrumental tone at classical music festivals held all over the world. Mutter has led a philharmonic life steadily - each of her albums featuring violin sonatas by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, etc. is a canon of a musical melody. A group of contemporary composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir André Previn and John Towner Williams, have composed music for her, while receiving various grand awards and medals of honour that carry her far-reaching influence in the international classical music scene. In recent years, Mutter has made sincere efforts to cultivate promising musicians. In June 2023, she took the members of the “Mutter Ensemble” to the Wiener Musikverein and gave a refreshing concert there to celebrate her 60th birthday.
On March 17
th, Mutter kicked off the concert with Mozart’s Violin Sonata in G Major, taking the audience to the first stop of her journey to string music - Classicism. Despite a gentle change in tempo, its only two movements contain delicate emotions and distinct gradations. In the first movement, Mutter and Lambert Orkis acted in ideal unison, impeccably presenting the composer’s definition of the exquisite harmony between the two musical instruments. Such harmony continued on through their interpretation of the entire sonata. The second work, Fantasy for Violin & Piano in C Major, was composed by Schubert in the last year of his life. Although the two pieces presented in the first half of the concert were composed in different times, both composers gave up putting a certain musical instrument at the core. Instead, they gave equal treatment to the violin and piano, with the two instruments “talking to each other” from the beginning to end. Mutter and Lambert Orkis happen to be a pair of great partners for these two pieces. So far, they have partnered with each other for over 36 years, and have jointly recorded an album of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, winning the Echo Klassik and Grammy Award. The two artists have visited the NCPA several times and held awesome live concerts, prolonging their impressive musical friendship and creating unforgettable memories for music lovers.
The second half of the concert began with three romanzas composed for the violin and piano by Clara Schumann. Being “romanzas”, the three pieces are all magnificent and full of tension. Mutter unleashed tremendous artistic energy in her interpretation of the three works - her rendition of rhapsodic lines, her expression of intense emotions and her treatment of subtle details were all amazing. When the melody became gentle, she gave a graceful interpretation of it. We could see the composer and performer, two great women, meet each other in the work at the very moment, jointly unleashing infinite power. The concert concluded with Respighi’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in B Minor. This work, which is a little less popular than the “Roman Trilogy”, is often seen in Mutter’s repertoire for her performing tours. For this piece from her personal repertoire, Mutter played it with her bowstring narrating what has invariably been accumulated and sublimed since Karajan’s time, burnishing elegant and charming image of this grand “goddess” of violin.
