Mutter renews push for Munich hall

Munich’s #1 citizen Anne-Sophie Mutter has issued a fresh blast against the Bavarian Government for failing to honour its pledge to build a new concert hall.

The temporary Isarphilharmonie is, she says, inadequate acoustically and in terms of musician and audience comfort.

She says: ‘We’re back to the hall and the urgent need to build a ‘Stradivarius’ for this great orchestra. The Isarphilharmonie just can’t do that. I can now only speak and report from the point of view of the soloist. The soloist’s dressing room is around six square meters, there’s not even a normal piano in there. I don’t know how a great pianist can go out and start a concert with Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov or whatever. Where is he warming up? Then there’s a conductor’s wardrobe – that’s pretty much it. Other rooms, halfway between a toilet and the basement, are where thousands of orchestra colleagues somehow and at some point can change their clothes … What I criticize is the way of thinking of the politicians, who think that because the hall sounds good, it is now off the agenda. But that’s not the case. Nothing has actually changed for the better for the musicians.’