The trouble with a recording like this is all the distractions: the dazzling packaging, the video, the multitudinous images of the alternately sultry, serious, playful, and sophisticated Anne-Sophie Mutter and her black-garbed band of backup boys, who look like refugees from a rock video but who really are part of a very decent chamber orchestra, the Trondheim Soloists. Okay, so the liner notes explain how Mutter wouldn’t have made this disc except for being inspired by a visit to the studio of painter Gotthard Graubner; she wants us to hear with our eyes as well as our ears. And after you’ve pushed past the cool colors and overlapping flaps of the disc case, you’ll discover that the music on the disc actually is very well performed–it is Anne-Sophie Mutter, after all–and expertly recorded. You have to wonder, though, aside from the fact that Deutsche Grammophon will sell lots of these, what more is offered here, musically speaking, besides a chance for the label to show off one of its true superstars.
DG already has a first rate Four Seasons with Gil Shaham, accompanied by one of the world’s finest chamber groups, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. And the catalog is packed with other performances by every violinist you’ve ever heard of. Thankfully, Mutter doesn’t seem to be trying to prove anything; in fact, you may notice that this performance is considerably slower than most–no souped-up, see, I can play it faster than you nonsense. Mutter is far too savvy and too good a musician to let all the artifice and pop-style promotional stuff get in the way of just playing the music. (Her “Winter” is truly chilling, in the best musical sense.) And there is something here–a secret reason to own this even if you already have a favorite Four Seasons: The “filler”–Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata, which is not even mentioned on the disc’s front cover or spine–is simply stunning. [A re-post from 1999, in honor of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s 60th birthday.]
