Anne-Sophie Mutter plays Lalo, Massenet and Sarasate

Advantages: Mutter's eloquence and sensitivity in older recording are enhanced here.
Disadvantages: None at all!

...As a fantastically talented eighteen-year-old, Anne-Sophie Mutter already awed me with her sensitive and thoughtful eloquence in her 1981 recording of the Brahms violin concerto (with Herbert von Karajan directing the Berlin Philharmonic). However, there’s an even deeper understanding in Mutter’s reading of the Brahms piece on this newer disc. This performance was taped live at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, New York City, in 1997. Kurt Masur conducts the New York Philharmonic in particularly inspired fashion. A difference of fifteen years separates the two recordings. In the time between, she married, had children, and then was widowed at a very young age. When Mutter returned to her instrument, she would bring a greater strength, emotional depth and insight to her playing, lending a maturity and assuredness to her... Read review

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Advantages: Romantic orchestral music
Disadvantages: Only 1 hour - eat quickly for a romantic dinner

...of the exquisite music composed by Bach. Each of three concertos on the album complies with the standard concerto form favored by Bach of three contrasting movements – fast, slow, fast. The first piece, Concerto in E minor, has a fast opening movement in which the solo violin, played by Anne-Sophie Mutter, flirts with the larger orchestral group with an infectious cheerfulness. The second movement is quieter, slower and more reflective where the violin sings out day-dreamily. The piece ends with a fast, happy dance-like movement. Salvatore Accardo joins Anne-Sophie Mutter for the second piece, Concerto for two violins in D minor. This is probably the best known of Bach’s concertos. In the opening Vivace (lively) movement, the two soloists converse together in a quasi fugue. The first violin making a statement answered by the second in an alternating... Read review

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Advantages: The Romances; concerto's third movement.
Disadvantages: Tempo, pitch and volume quirks in Concerto.

...I never imagined I'd ever down-rate one by Anne-Sophie Mutter for reasons to do with the German violinist herself, but in this case, it just can’t be helped. Two-and-a-half stars are all that this sadly disappointing disc merits from me, an avowed Mutter fan. Mutter revisits the Beethoven workhorse (the Violin Concerto) decades after first recording it as a teen, under the guidance of mentor Herbert von Karajan. That version “distinguishes” itself by being among the slowest out there on disc today. And yet that same performance (tending as it does toward the ponderous) remains more emotionally involving than this, Mutter's more "mature" one. It’s the second joint effort between Mutter and Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic (NYPO), recorded in May 2002 at Avery Fisher Hall, New York City as part of Masur's series of farewell... Read review

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