Anne-Sophie Mutter's Vita

2024 Anne-Sophie Mutter's Vita

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: for 48 years the virtuoso has now been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor and visionary. The four-time Grammy® Award winner is equally committed to the performance of traditional composers as to the future of music.

So far she has given world premieres of 31 works – Thomas Adès, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and John Williams have all composed for Anne-Sophie Mutter. She dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerous benefit projects. Furthermore, the board of trustees of the German cancer charity “Deutsche Krebshilfe” elected her the new president of the non-profit organization in 2021. Since January 2022 she joins the foundation board of the Lucerne Festival. In the autumn of 1997 she founded the Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation e.V., to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions provide support for the scholarship recipients, support which is tailored to the fellows’ individual needs. Since 2011, Anne-Sophie Mutter has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, Mutter’s Virtuosi.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s concert calendar in 2024 features performances in Asia, Europe and North America, once again reflecting the musical versatility of the violinist and her unprecedented standing in the world of classical music. Numerous compositions dedicated to her will be part of these concerts; in many countries, they will be performed for the first time.

At the beginning of the year, Mutter gives the British premiere of the Violin Concerto No. 2, which John Williams dedicated to her, as well as the Hollywood legend’s film scores in London. Her musical partners are the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jonathon Hayward.

At the end of January, concerts in Los Angeles follow, where she will play the Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Pablo Ferrández, a fellow of her Foundation, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel’s baton.

She appears at the Mozart Week in Salzburg with two programmes: the Sinfonie Concertante will be performed with violist Michael Barenboim; Lahav Shani conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. For the four Piano Trios, she joins forces with pianist Lauma Skride and cellist Maximilian Hornung, an alumnus of her Foundation.

In March, Mutter tours Asia, where she rings in the 36th year of her musical collaboration with pianist Lambert Orkis. The programme includes works by Mozart, Respighi, Schubert and Clara Schumann. The two exceptional musicians will also perform this programme in Europe during the second half of the year.

Commemorating the 30th anniversary of Witold Lutosławski’s death, in Warsaw Mutter will perform the orchestral version of the Partita, a work dedicated to her, as well as the Polish composer’s Chain 2 and Interlude. Andrzej Boreyko conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lutosławski’s Partita will also be performed in Leipzig and in London, where it is combined with Tomas Adès’ Air – Homage to Sibelius, which the composer dedicated to the violinist and which will have its German and British premieres. In Leipzig, Andris Nelsons conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra; in the British metropolis, Thomas Adès conducts the London Symphony Orchestra.

During her June tour of Europe, Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 2 is once more the focus of attention, and Mutter will perform it with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Fabio Luisi.

She will also perform film themes by Williams during the “Klassik am Odeonsplatz” event in Munich – with the Munich Philharmonic under the baton of Lahav Shani.

The Brahms Violin Concerto is on the programme during the second half of the year in Europe with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. During another European tour, Mutter will play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto together with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and its music director Manfred Honeck.

Mutter concludes her 2024 concert year with Williams’ Violin Concerto No. 2 as well as selected film themes – together with the Hollywood legend at the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Discography

Her first recording was released in 1978: Mozart’s Violin Concerti Nos. 3 and 5 with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Since then she has made numerous recordings, for which Anne-Sophie Mutter has received four Grammies®, nine Echo Classic Awards, the German Recording Award, the Record Academy Prize, the Grand Prix du Disque and the International Phono Award.

The following contains an overview of the past 15 years: On the occasion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th birthday in 2006, Anne-Sophie Mutter presented new recordings of Mozart’s complete major compositions for violin.

In September 2008 her recording of Gubaidulina’s Violin Concerto In tempus praesens as well as the Bach Violin Concerti in A-Minor and E-Major was released.

During the Mendelssohn anniversary year of 2009, Anne-Sophie Mutter paid very personal homage to the composer, uniting solo concerto repertoire and chamber music on CD and DVD: the Violin Sonata in F-Major written in 1838, the Piano Trio in D-Minor completed a year later, and the Violin Concerto in E-Minor of 1845.

March 2010 saw the release of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s recording of the Brahms Violin Sonatas, performed with Lambert Orkis. For her 35-year stage anniversary in 2011, Deutsche Grammophon released a comprehensive box set with all of the artist’s DG recordings, extensive documentary material and as-yet unpublished rarities. At the same time, an album of first recordings of pieces dedicated to the violinist by Wolfgang Rihm, Sebastian Currier and Krzysztof Penderecki appeared.

In October 2013 Anne-Sophie Mutter presented her first recording of the Dvořák Violin Concerto with conductor Manfred Honeck and the Berlin Philharmonic.

In May 2014 a double CD with recordings by Mutter and Orkis followed, commemorating the 25th anniversary of their collaboration: The Silver Album featuring the first recordings of Penderecki’s La Follia and Previn’s Violin Sonata No. 2.

The live recording Anne-Sophie Mutter – Live from Yellow Lounge of her club performance in Berlin was released on CD, vinyl, DVD and Blu-ray disc on August 28, 2015. This was the first live recording ever from a Yellow Lounge. On the podium at Neue Heimat Berlin, Anne-Sophie Mutter was joined by her long-standing piano accompanist Lambert Orkis, “Mutter’s Virtuosi” and the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. The programme covered three centuries of classical music – from Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi to George Gershwin and John Williams – a combination chosen especially by Anne-Sophie Mutter for the club evenings.

Commemorating the 40-year stage anniversary of the charismatic artist, Deutsche Grammophon assembled the double CD Mutterissimo – The Art of Anne-Sophie Mutter, released in 2016. It assembles the highlights of her multi-faceted discography – personally selected by Anne-Sophie Mutter herself and focusing primarily on the past two decades of her impressive career.

In November 2017, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniil Trifonov released their first joint album, focusing on one of the most famous works in all the classical repertoire. Together with Hwayoon Lee, Maximilian Hornung and Roman Patkoló, they recorded Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A-major, generally known as the “Trout Quintet”. The programme also included Schubert’s Notturno, a masterful late work for violin, cello and piano, as well as his songs Ständchen and Ave Maria, arranged for violin and piano.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s 85th birthday was honoured by Deutsche Grammophon in 2018 with a double album including all the works he has dedicated to Anne-Sophie Mutter, including her first recording of the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2: a sensitive and touching homage by the violinist to her musical friend and companion.

In 2018, Deutsche Grammophon also commemorated the 40-year anniversary of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first recording by re-releasing her earliest concerto recordings in a deluxe hardcover edition entitled The Early Years – featuring violin concerti by Mozart (Nos. 3 and 5), Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn. Thanks to the new, high-resolution audio format 2.2 24bit/192kHz, the listener has the impression of being in the violinist’s immediate vicinity.

In August 2019, Across the Stars, her album with some of the most brilliant works by the composer and multiple Oscar-winner John Williams, was released, for which Williams adapted most of the recorded works especially for her.

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim recorded Beethoven’s Triple Concerto together, celebrating the composer’s 250th anniversary. The album also commemorates the 20-year anniversary of the founding of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. It was released on May 8, 2020, 40 years after the legendary recording of the Triple Concerto by Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yo-Yo Ma under Herbert von Karajan’s baton.

In August 2020 it was followed by John Williams in Vienna: the legendary American film composer conducted the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in January 2020; the recording documents this historical performance of film history milestones. For the Musikverein audience, Anne-Sophie Mutter performed a selection of the virtuoso adaptations which Williams created especially for her, including Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter, Devil’s Dance from The Witches of Eastwick and the theme from Sabrina. In February 2021 the so-called “live edition” of this concert appeared, including six bonus tracks and John Williams’ remarks from the podium, introducing each work on the Viennese programme.

“Composed especially for Anne-Sophie Mutter” is the inscription John Williams added to his Violin Concerto No. 2, which the two of them premiered together on July 24, 2021 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In September 2021 the new work was recorded with the same cast as its world premiere, complemented by several new film themes. This CD was released in June 2022.

November 2022 saw the release of a recording of the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms with the cellist Pablo Ferrández and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, as well as Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio with the pianist Lambert Orkis, her long-time musical partner and friend.

The first album of her Foundation’s ensemble, “Mutter’s Virtuosi”, was released in November 2023. As part of a European tour, Anne-Sophie Mutter and her Virtuosi ensemble gave an impressive performance at Vienna’s Musikverein, forming the basis of this versatile and thoughtful album of music by Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Bologne, André Previn and John Williams.

Benefit Concerts

Anne-Sophie Mutter also takes a keen interest in alleviating medical and social problems of our times. She supports various causes through regular benefit concerts. Anne-Sophie Mutter performed a benefit gala commemorating the centenary of the Cologne Chamber Orchestra in March 2023, supporting the ensemble’s continued existence and its outstanding orchestral culture. In June, she performed in support of the Music School “Giuseppe Sarti” in Faenza, in October for the association supporting Nymphenburg Palace, and in December for the Foundation “Leipzig Helps Children”. In 2024 she will give a benefit concert for the German Cancer Society, which celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Awards

In June 2023, Anne-Sophie Mutter received the Ruhr Piano Festival Prize, and the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded her its Gold Medal. The Krzysztof Penderecki Music Academy in Cracow bestowed an honorary doctorate on her in 2022. In 2019, Anne-Sophie Mutter was honoured to receive the Praemium Imperiale in the music category; she received the 2019 Polar Music Prize. Poland awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Cultural Achievements to Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2018, making her the first German artist to receive such an honour. In 2018 the violinist was named an honorary member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In 2017 Romania awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of a Grand Officer to Anne-Sophie Mutter and France honoured her by presenting her with the insignia of a Commander of the French Order of the Arts and Literature. In 2016 the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports awarded her the “Medalla de oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes” (Gold Medal for Merits in the Fine Arts). In 2015, Anne-Sophie Mutter was named an Honorary Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford. In 2013 she became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, after winning the medal of the Lutosławski Society (Warsaw) in January. In 2012 the Atlantic Council bestowed the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award upon her. In 2011 she received the Brahms Prize as well as the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social activism. In 2010 the Technical-Scientific University of Norway in Trondheim bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her; in 2009 she won the European St. Ulrich Award as well as the Cristobal Gabarron Award. In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was the recipient of the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize as well as the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize.

The violinist has been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and numerous other honours.

Last updated on December 21, 2023

Translation: Alexa Nieschlag

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