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).
There’s a time for Bruckner – Interview Christian Thielemann
Talking Otello
Making of “La Bohème”
In Memoriam Mstislav Rostropovich
This Unitel documentary with unreleased footage material – produced in the course of his 80th birthday in March 2007 – shows the eventful and emotional life of the extraordinary cellist Mstislaw Rostropovich. In one of his last interviews, Mstislaw Rostropovich draws a touching bow from his childhood in Russia – when he suffered from the apathy of his father – to his emigration, his enormous prosperities in a foreign country and to the point of his triumphal return back home. The portrait describes emotional moments in the life of one of the most important cellists and lights up the political and social commitment of the artist. Companions and pupil of the musician like the composer Krzysztof Penderecki, Natalia Gutman and Maxim Vengerov give an impression of who and how he was.
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.
Mozart, Trio in E major, K.542
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.
Mozart, Trio in C major, K.548
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.
Pfitzner, Three Preludes to “Palestrina”
“Grandiose, unaffected, expansive, majestic, immovable…” – Christian Thielemann’s description of Anton Bruckner’s music vividly captures its essence and uniqueness. And he himself captures the soul of the great romantic composer in his interpretation of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic. Recorded live at the Festspielhaus Baden- Baden on 14 November 2006, the concert also features three orchestral preludes from the opera “Palestrina” by another late-romantic composer, Hans Pfitzner. The preludes from Pfitzner’s “Palestrina”, the composer’s most well-known work, evoke the events about to transpire in the acts that follow them. While the subtle, refined nuances of the first prelude suggests the creative crisis of the opera’s hero, the Renaissance composer Palestrina, the second reflects the turbulent atmosphere of the Council of Trent and the third the inner peace found at long last by Palestrina beneath the cupola of St. Peter’s. Completed in September 1883, several months after the death of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major is a stunning homage to the composer of the “Ring”. A passionate admirer of Wagner, Bruckner claimed that he had the master’s death in mind while writing the Adagio of this symphony. With its particularly soaring and melodious themes, the Seventh is Bruckner’s most popular and accessible symphony. It would be difficult to find a better team to interpret Bruckner’s music today than Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Thielemann, the General Music Director of the Munich ensemble, is a universally recognized Bruckner and Wagner expert, who inaugurated his tenure at the head of the Philharmonic by conducting Bruckner’s Fifth. The Munich orchestra has a long-standing tradition of performing Bruckner’s music and boasts a particular attachment to the Seventh: it was the second orchestra to play the work, and the success it obtained with it in 1885 helped establish Bruckner as a major contemporary composer. Thielemann also led the Munich Philharmonic and the Regensburg Boys’ Choir in the first concert given in honor of Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City in October 2005, which was also recorded by Unitel/Classica.