Sicklist: Mutter’s down

Sicklist: Mutter’s down

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norman lebrecht

March 03, 2019

Soulmate dies. Flu strikes. A bad week.

Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has been forced to postpone her Wednesday, March 6,recital with pianist Lambert Orkis at Walt Disney Concert Hall due to the flu. The recital will now take place, Saturday, March 9, at 2pm.
MOZART         Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 304
DEBUSSY       Violin Sonata
RAVEL  Violin Sonata No. 2
MOZART         Violin Sonata in B-flat, K. 454
POULENC       Violin Sonata

Comments

  • Caravaggio says:

    Beautiful program. But at this juncture, I would much rather hear younger talent such as pianist Rafal Blechacz, whose new disc of piano-violin sonatas (Fauré, Debussy, Szymanowski) with an unknown-to-me Bomsori Kim on the violin, I find exquisite.

  • Bruce says:

    I hope 3 days is enough. I hope she realizes she can perform sitting down (perhaps on a tall stool) if necessary.

  • Tomás Costa says:

    As a violinist, I have made it my goal to never program recitals like these. I find programmes with half a dozen sonatas to be tiresome, regardless of how excellent the performers might be (and I’m certainly no one compared to ASM)’

    I once heard Valery Sokolov play two Beethoven sonatas before playing the Bartok first violin sonata. He still played the Tzigane afterwards. By then I could hardly focus on a single bar (concerts in my country are usually at 9:30 PM). I prefer to mix ‘serious’ large scale works with lighter music. Fritz Kreisler wouldn’t have written all of those pieces if you were only supposed to play one of them per concert, as an encore.

    • M2N2K says:

      To each his (or her) own. The quality of the performance is crucial. This Mozart/French five-course menu looks like a beautiful program to me.

    • SVM says:

      Mr Costa’s stance against long/heavy recitals is understandable, but if one is travelling a long way to the event, a big “feast” is exactly what one desires. I live only just outside London, and the travel time to get to a recital in one of the great London halls exceeds the actual duration of the music one goes to hear. For those who do not live in/near a big metropolis, the effort (both time and money) in getting to a recital is gargantuan, and many such people will not be able to go to recitals regularly. For those people, a “feast-famine” model (as opposed to an “everything in moderation” model) is the *only* way they can access great music meaningfully.

    • Saxon Broken says:

      I sort of agree with you, but maybe this programme will be sufficiently varied since it alternates Mozart with Ravel/Debussy.

  • M2N2K says:

    Postponing a recital by a few days because of the death of her former husband whom she calls her “soulmate” – half of the world away from the location of the recital – is fully understandable, and no one would have criticized her for it, so inventing that silly flu excuse was totally unnecessary.

    • Kermit says:

      Perhaps she actually does have flu? Just a thought….give her a break!

    • ALex says:

      You don’t know that she “invented” anything, you inconsiderate ass

      • M2N2K says:

        It is precisely because of being “considered” that I stated that “no one would have criticized her for it”. If I see the credible proof of that “flu”, i will have no problem apologizing for my erroneous assumption. When people get sick (and influenza is a serious illness), they don’t reschedule their recitals to just less than three days later.

    • David Hilton says:

      Los Angeles is not exactly “half the world away” from New York, where Previn died; though to some Americans it probably seems that way.

      • M2N2K says:

        One large continent away would be closer to the truth, but knowing that she is playing the same program in Santa Barbara this Friday already, I find it extremely unlikely that one day after death of a person whom she calls her “soulmate” she suddenly decided last weekend that she had “flu” and would still be sick on Wednesday but will be completely healthy just two days later. The postponement of her recital because of his death is completely understandable and does not need any additional excuses.

  • Jeremy Aktin says:

    >>Kreisler wouldn’t have written all of those pieces if you were only supposed to play one of them per concert, as an encore.

    Yes, good point. But who would want to hear A-SM play even one of those ? I shudder to think how these bon bons would sound in her earnest way.

  • Jeremy Aktin says:

    Hope it’s OK to re-post this article by NL from 2005:

    http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/051005-NL-mutter.html

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