Mutter and Orkis Record Brahm's 3 Violin Sonatas, 10/12

Acclaimed violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter returns to recording chamber music after two highly successful albums devoted primarily to concertos (Mendelssohn and Bach & Gubaidulina) and also returns to Brahms, a composer who has meant much to her over the years.  Mutter is joined by longtime partner Lambert Orkis with whom she previously recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas, and the two reveal the musical benefits of frequent collaboration.  This new recording will be available October 12, 2010 in both CD and DVD formats.
 
Anne-Sophie Mutter came across the Brahms Sonatas at age five and a half when she heard David Oistrakh in concert.  Soon she was performing the Brahms Concerto and Double Concerto with Karajan and even recorded them for DG in the early 1980s.  Now, almost 30 years later, Ms. Mutter returns to Brahms with a different perspective.  According to her, "my view of Brahms, my view on anything I play today has changed.  I have a deeper understanding of music and, if you want it or not, life does leave its marks not only in your brain but in your heart and in your soul."
 
These three monumental works for violin and piano were composed in just under the span of a decade, with the second and third sonatas both composed during the summer of 1886.  Each is unique unto itself and evokes different emotions and images: the private feeling of the G major sonata to the sunnier disposition of the A major and the more grand (and demonic) D minor sonata.  Mutter and Orkis have played these works around the world for nearly twenty years and now bring their individual and shared life experiences to this recording.  As Orkis says, "We've learned them, we've lived with them, and we've played them on various continents together, and we go through life experiences, and now we bring it all to this music. Brahms is a composer who's not showing off: he's showing life, beauty, art. It's wonderful."
 
In a rare treat for New York audiences, Ms. Mutter will be the New York Philharmonic's Artist-in-Residence throughout the 2010 | 2011 season.  In a number of concerts she will display her talents as an orchestral soloist, chamber musician, director and leading champion of new music for violin and orchestra.  Highlights include the New York-premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's In Tempus Praesens (which was heard in its US-premiere in San Francisco in 2009), the world-premieres of works by Wolfgang Rihm, Sebastian Currier and Krysztof Penderecki, as well as works by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms and more.
 
Anne-Sophie Mutter was born in Rheinfelden in Baden (Germany). She embarked on international career as a soloist in 1976 at the Lucerne Festival and a year later made Salzburg debut at the Whitsun Concerts under Herbert von Karajan, followed by first appearances in the US (1980), Japan (1981) and Russia (1985). She made her first recording for Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 14: Mozart violin concertos with Karajan and Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom she later also recorded the Mendelssohn, Bruch, Brahms and Beethoven.
 
The violinist has also committed herself to alleviating the medical and social problems our times and gives regular benefit concerts to this end. She has been the recipient numerous important honors and distinctions from the governments of Germany, Austria and France, as well as from the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg and the city Munich. In 2008 she was awarded the international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and donated half of the prize money to the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation, whose objective is to further increase worldwide support for promising young musicians. The same year also received Leipzig's Mendelssohn Prize. Her recordings have been crowned with innumerable prizes.
 
 
Anne-Sophie Mutter in Performance:
 
10/2/2010 - Chicago (Symphony Center); Beethoven Concerto w/ Chicago Symphony Orchestra
11/7/2010 - San Francisco (Davies Hall); Beethoven String Trios
11/10/2010 - Orange County Performing Arts Center; Beethoven String Trios
11/13/2010 - Washington DC (Kennedy Center); Brahms Sonatas w/ Lambert Orkis
11/14/2010 - New York (Avery Fisher); Beethoven String Trios
11/18-23/2010 - New York (Avery Fisher); Mozart & Currier w/ The New York Philharmonic
3/31-4/2/2011 - New York (Avery Fisher); Gubaidulina w/ The New York Philharmonic
4/3/2011 - New York (Avery Fisher); Chamber Music
6/2-6/4/2011 - New York (Avery Fisher); Beethoven & Currier w/ The New York Philharmonic
6/5/2011 - New York (Avery Fisher); Chamber Music w/ Lambert Orkis including Brahms

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