In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was awarded not only the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Award, but also the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. The award ceremony in March 2008 was crowned by a gala concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus. The recording offers a selection of masterpieces by Mendelssohn (1809-1847) in a variety of instrumentations. Joining her in Mendelssohn’s Sonata for Violin F major (Length: 25’ – A05512287) is pianist André Previn, who is also an internationally renowned conductor and composer. He and cellist Lynn Harrell also interpret the D-minor Trio (Length: 29’ – A055122880001) with her. This is a stunning anthology of chamber music from one of the most vibrant composers of the early romantic era, performed by top artists of today!
Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor
In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was awarded not only the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Award, but also the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. The award ceremony in March 2008 was crowned by a gala concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus. The recording offers a selection of masterpieces by Mendelssohn (1809-1847) in a variety of instrumentations. Joining her in Mendelssohn’s Sonata for Violin F major (Length: 25’ – A05512287) is pianist André Previn, who is also an internationally renowned conductor and composer. He and cellist Lynn Harrell also interpret the D-minor Trio (Length: 29’ – A055122880001) with her. This is a stunning antholog of chamber music from one of the most vibrant composers of the early romantic era, performed by top artists of today!
Mendelssohn, Piano Trio No.1 in D minor, op.49
One of the world’s foremost violinists, Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical celebrity known even by countless people who rarely listen to classical music. The artist and teacher, who promotes young musicians and commissions new works from contemporary composers, made her spectacular breakthrough under Herbert von Karajan at the 1977 Salzburg Easter Festival. She has since concertized at every major venue throughout the world. In 2008 she was awarded not only the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Award, but also the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. The award ceremony in March 2008 was crowned by a gala concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur, at which Mutter performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor op. 64 presented here. The recording offers a selection of masterpieces by Mendelssohn (1809-1847) in a variety of instrumentations. In addition to Mutter, Masur and the Leipzig orchestra, the performers also include Mutter’s chamber-music partners Lynn Harrell and André Previn. On the occasion of the Mendelssohn Year, UNITEL CLASSICA also offers the documentary Anne-Sophie Mutter – Encounters with Mendelssohn, in which the artist discusses her affinity to Mendelssohn and explains why she particularly admires the works presented here. Mutter has performed the Violin Concerto several times in her career. Joining her in Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata is pianist André Previn, who is also an internationally renowned conductor and composer. Previn accompanied Mutter in several Mozart Trios that are part of her “Mozart Project” available from UNITEL CLASSICA. He and cellist Lynn Harrell now interpret the D-minor Trio with her. This is a stunning anthology of chamber and orchestral music from one of the most vibrant composers of the early romantic era, performed by top artists of today!
Mendelssohn, Violin Concerto in E Minor Op. 64
In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was awarded not only the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Award, but also the Leipzig Mendelssohn Award. The award ceremony in March 2008 was crowned by a gala concert at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur, at which Mutter performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor op. 64 presented here. Also available: Anne-Sophie Mutter – Encounters with Mendelssohn, Documentary, Length: 18’, directed by Günter Atteln (A04500548).
Bruckner, Symphony No.4 in E flat major
Bruckner originally wrote the Fourth Symphony in 1874, but revised it thoroughly in 1880 before its premiere in Vienna in 1881, which was a resounding success. Although he continued to revise it in later years,the version most often played today is the first revised version of 1880. This is also the version featured on this recording of a concert held at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, which was greeted with storms of applause. Leading the Münchner Philharmoniker in this concert is ist principal conductor Christian Thielemann, a maestro internationally known and admired above all as a specialist of Romantic music.
The Promise of Music – Beethovenfest Bonn
The concert given by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under its conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the Beethovenfest 2007 in Bonn was a highlight of the musical year. Over 200 young musicians between the ages of 10 and 24, many from underprivileged backgrounds, performed with nearly untamable energy under the baton of a young maestro destined to conduct the most fabled orchestras in the world. The concert program (2 x 45’) includes Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances, and pieces by Latin American composers Revueltas, Márquez and Ginastera. In the riveting 90-minute documentary ‘The Promise of Music’ (Prog. No. A05016554) directed by Enrique Sánchez Lansch (award-winning ‘Rhythm Is It’), we follow Dudamel as he prepares his orchestra in Caracas for its concert in Bonn, and we accompany the young musicians on their trip to Europe.
Julia Fischer – Violin and Piano
In her January 2008 concert with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie under Matthias Pintscher, Julia Fischer, named ‘Artist of the Year’ in 2007 by the U.K.’s ‘Gramophone’ magazine, did exactly as Bach and Mozart did: she appeared in public as a soloist on two completely different instruments, the violin and the piano. Fischer, who also trained as a pianist, pulled off this rare and risky feat with extraordinary prowess. In Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor op. 61, she weaves her lines seamlessly into the orchestral texture, emerging now with prominent embellishments, now with passionate cantilenas, or withdrawing to let the woodwinds express themselves as equals. For her ‘piano’ part of the evening, Julia Fischer chose the popular Grieg Concerto in A minor op. 16, a warhorse that shares with the previous work an intricate interweaving of the solo and orchestral parts. Commenting on her flawless piano technique and utterly natural artistry on this instrument, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: ‘She mastered the work with bravura … a more than amazing double talent.’
Opera Gala Baden-Baden
Four of the greatest singers of our time combine their talents and their artistry in an evening of beloved operatic numbers – rarely has a concert deserved the title ‘Opera Summit’ as much as this one, recorded live at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden on 3 August 2007. Heading the quartet is soprano Anna Netrebko with her inimitable blend of glamour and simplicity, her enticing appearance and seductive singing, a musical powerhouse who tops the pop charts and sells out operas houses within hours. Hardly less dazzling than her Russian colleague is Latvian mezzo Elina Garanc?a, whose crystal-clear voice and charismatic stage presence never fail to enthrall her audiences. Replacing the indisposed Rolando Villazón is his fellow Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, who began his career in Europe after winning the first prize in the Enrico Caruso Competition in Milan. French baritone Ludovic Tézier is a frequent guest at La Scala, the Opéra Bastille and the Met.
Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Mozart: Trios for Violin, Cello and Piano
All three trios on this recording are lending weight to the claim that they are the three finest and most exemplary works in this genre by Mozart. In the earliest of the three, K. 502, Mozart broke through the traditional predominance of the piano to give equal weight to the strings, whereby the violin is given ample opportunity to display the soloist‘s bravura. Joining Anne-Sophie Mutter on this recording is the internationally acclaimed young cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. At the piano is Sir André Previn, pianist, conductor, composer and gifted accompanist. The stunning location of the concert – the late-Baroque Teatro Bibiena in Mantua – bears a subtle connection to Mozart, for it is here that the 14-year-old Wolfgang gave a recital with his father in January 1770 while on his first tour of Italy.
Mozart, Trio in B flat major, K.502
When Anne-Sophie Mutter says that Mozart wrote his trios for violin, violoncello and piano for his own enjoyment, then this is not merely a conclusion derived from the artist’s own pleasure in playing these works with talented colleagues. Mozart himself, in a letter of June 1788 to his friend Michael Puchberg, added this postscript: “When are we to have a little musical party at your house again? I have composed a new trio!” He was referring to the Piano Trio in E major K. 542. All three trios on this recording are not only late works, but were also published together in 1788, lending weight to the claim that they are the three finest and most exemplary works in this genre by Mozart. In the earliest of the three, K. 502, Mozart broke through the traditional predominance of the piano to give equal weight to the strings, whereby the violin is given ample opportunity to display the soloist’s bravura. The Trios K. 542 and 548 were both written in the astonishingly fruitful summer of 1788, during which Mozart wrote the great trilogy of his last symphonies. They show Mozart at the very height of his powers. Proof that Mozart thought highly of K. 542 emerges in the fact that he played it at the court of Dresden in 1789 when he was seeking an appointment there. Finally, K. 548 in C major is a more restrained work that concentrates on motivic development and, in its slow movement, foreshadows the chamber music of the early 19th century. Joining Anne-Sophie Mutter on this recording is the internationally acclaimed young cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, who, as a scholarship holder from her Foundation, benefited from Ms. Mutter’s personal sponsorship at the outset of his career. More than one critic is already mentioning his name in one breath with Pablo Casals and Mstislav Rostropovich. At the piano is Sir André Previn, pianist, conductor, composer and gifted accompanist. The stunning location of the concert – the late-Baroque Teatro Bibiena in Mantua – bears a subtle connection to Mozart, for it is here that the 14-year-old Wolfgang gave a recital with his father in January 1770 while on his first tour of Italy. Also available is a “making-of” documentary on “The Mozart Project” (45′), in which Anne-Sophie Mutter talks about her relationship to Mozart’s music and is joined by her colleagues André Previn, Lambert Orkis and Daniel Müller-Schott.