Brahms: The Violin Sonatas

Universal Classical Album of the Month, March 2010

Anne-Sophie Mutter | BRAHMS: The Violin Sonatas

ARTISTS

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin Lambert Orkis, piano

TRACK LISTING

BRAHMS: Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 2 in A major, Op. 100 BRAHMS: Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 1 in G major, Op. 7

BRAHMS: Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108

On this recording, Anne-Sophie Mutter, accompanied by pianist Lambert Orkis, shares her up-to-date thoughts on the Brahms Violin Sonatas that have been central to her repertoire from the start of her career.

These sonatas are among the most intense, emotionally penetrating works composed for the violin.

Second only to her solo repertoire, chamber music has been for Anne-Sophie Mutter an on-going passion and commitment. Her communion with Orkis’s pianism defines musical collaboration at its zenith.

Recent reviews of concerts where she performed these pieces are excellent and will certainly make for an outstanding recording:

“Her Brahms playing has acquired new maturity and intimacy”, writes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. “The dreamlike ending of the G major Sonata even took one’s breath away for a moment.”

“Mutter’s Brahms today sounds more serious and restrained. One almost has the impression that she wants to dissect sounds and structures, to avoid overly hard contrasts, and yet to seek out hidden fractures that Brahms in his wholly rational approach tries so hard to cover up or at least to even out… It is there again: this melting quality, this penetrating, soulful sound of unearthly beauty… Mutter now shows an interpretive potential that has been altered and developed by her involvement with new music, for example with the second violin concerto In tempus praesens by Sofia Gubaidulina, which she premiered. Suddenly the tone seems to float, shorn of vibrato, turning almost eerie, only to be filled again at once with warmth and new life.” Die Welt