Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This recital is an offshoot of Anne-Sophie Mutter's concerts in Europe and America which represented her retrospective of 20th-century music at the start of the new millennium. And what a journey she takes us on! The Webern Four Pieces op.7 and Respighi's B-minor sonata were written within a few years of each other, yet inhabit different worlds. The Respighi was an intriguing choice, but Mutter's passionate lyricism, feeling for colour and controlled virtuosity make out the best possible case for it. These qualities and more flood through a simply magnificent performance of the op.94a D-major Prokofiev sonata. It's Mutter's total identification with every phrase that beguiles the ear, composer and performer self-evidently sharing the same language. Between the two sonatas, Webern and George Crumb make very different demands on both listener and performers. The dream (and nightmare) world of the Crumb Four Nocturnes not only exploits the full range of violinistic resource but also sends the excellent Lambert Orkis under the piano lid in search of ghostly sounds. Next to that, the Webern Pieces sound almost conservative--again Mutter is uncannily inside every nuance. The complete artist. --Andrew Green
