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Anne-Sophie Mutter: Do I care about perfection?

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norman lebrecht

November 25, 2018

A new interview (in English) with Deutsche Welle:

And there’s more here auf Deutsch. Take your shtick.

Comments

Fan says:

November 25, 2018 at 10:32 am

The captioning misspelt Mischa Elman as “Michaelmann”.

Novagerio says:

November 26, 2018 at 9:00 am

A charming sweet woman – always

Jonathan Dunsby says:

November 26, 2018 at 11:05 am

==charming sweet

Huh ? She’s always come across hard as nails

Reply
- buxtehude says:
  
  November 26, 2018 at 11:47 am
  
  I remember, from years ago, the start of an interview with her on the local classical station. Radio personalities in this niche tend to be way over on the cautious, even timid end of the scale and always admiring.
  
  But now a storm was brewing. The performer had it from her claque that the poor fellow had publicly insulted her as “the red hot mama of the violin.” That was a Good Thing he tried to explain, with increasing desperation. But the mama stayed just a shade cooler than red hot. “Maybe afterwards we will make some discussions!”
  
  Reply

Spenser says:

November 27, 2018 at 6:35 am

Anne-Sophie Mutter….
A great violinist, a thoughtful musician, and a lovely woman. I always look forward to hearing her latest projects.
She has throughout her career been inconsistent, though.
Her Beethoven Sonata set with Orkis is, to be VERY charitable, not up to form.
The same can be said for her Beethoven Concerto with Masur. Which is surprising, given the excellence of her version with Karajan.
But her Mozart Concerto set, with the LPO and no conductor (and adding Bashmet in the Sinfonia Concertante), is brilliant beyond words. I’ll add some though: it is insightful, probing, stylish, perfectly played (violinistically and orchestrally), and just plain beautiful. That set always resides near my CD player.
And her Bartok 2nd Sonata with Orkis is marvelous. One of my favorites.
I’ve had her recording of Penderecki’s 2nd Concerto for some time now, and given that I have not yet been able to fully enter his sound world, I find it quite interesting and excellently played.
It might be good to remember that perfection is something always to be striven for, but rarely achieved.