Customer Reviews

Beethoven: "Spring" and "Kreutzer" Sonatas/Anne-Sophie Mutter - A Life with Beethoven

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It was cold outside. Chicago has been hit by a blizzard and everywhere is covered with snow. The winter just began yesterday.

I got this DVD in the mail today, opened it and put it in my DVD-Rom. Suddenly, winter withdrew and "spring" has come! Of course, it's Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata.

For thousands of Mutter fans, this DVD is godsend. It includes two programs of Beethoven's Sonata. The first one is the Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 5 in F major (Spring), 26 minutes. The second one is the Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 9 in A major (Kreutzer), 44 minutes. ASM is amazing and perfect in both programs, working together with her long-time partner, Lambert Orkis. The music is exuberant with color, emotion and energy.

This was a live recording in Theatre of Champs-Elysees in France in 1998. For those Mutter fans who have been to an ASM concert (as I have), the format is very similar to those concerts. Mutter stands on the right side of Orkis and piano, closer to the stage. They work together perfectly, the dialogue of music flows like a stream in spring.

A HUGE bonus is the documentary A Life With Beethoven. In this 58-minutes movie, Mutter tells us how she grew up to be a violinist, her early music training with Herbert von Karajan, and her interpretations of Beethoven's music. It is a documentary full of photos and video clips.

Both sound and video quality are magnificent. I own one ASM DVD recored in early 1980s and it's quite dull. But this one is perfect in every perspective.

I am lucky enough to find this DVD before it's released. For a Mutter fan like me, this is the ultimate collection that you don't want to miss.

This is a great DVD. The video and audio are excellent. By the end you get a real insight into the world of Beethoven shared by Mutter and Orkis. Mutter's interpretation, of course, is open to debate among fellow violinists but her interpretation is well presented in this video.

The storyline of the documentary is well thought out, beginning with Mutter and pianist Orkis arriving at the airport in Paris for the performance, then on to Mutter's review of her experience as a teenager performing the Beethoven violin concerto with Herbert Von Karajan, followed by a visit to a music museum where a gloved ASM displays for the viewer the original manuscripts of the sonatas. (Unlike Mozart, Beethoven's originals had numerous corrections and revisions throughout). Interspersed throughout the movie are video clips and still photos of Mutter throughout her life and an interview with a french violinist whose advice she sought on purchasing her current Strad, along with glimpses of Mutter and Orkis discussing their shared musical insights and historical tidbits. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

One final note, if your TV set's proportions are standard as mine is you'll need to make sure to adjust the display of the DVD or ASM won't be fully displayed during her performances.

For music lovers, it is trite knowledge that Beethoven's chamber music is as ingenious as his symphonies and concertos. In this DVD, one witnesses live Paris performances of two of Beethoven's most celebrated violin sonatas: the "Spring" (No. 5 in F Major) and the "Kreutzer" (No. 9 in A Major). I don't need to explain (to anyone culturally sophisticated enough to be reading this review) the sublimity of these two masterpieces.

As for the performing artists, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is the serious interpreter while the "accompanying" pianist Lambert Orkis appears to be the more fun-loving one.

"A Life with Beethoven" is sort of a "behind the scenes" look at these two performances as they arrive in Paris by plane, practice the violin sonatas together, and chat about Beethoven and music history. This documentary also includes clips from what appears to be live performances, by the same duo, of Beethoven's other violin sonatas including the 10th. There are also brief clips from the 70s showing Ms. Mutter playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto under the masterful baton of the late Maestro Karajan.

My recent interest to Kreutzer sonata was rekindled by a conversation on Tolstoy and his famous story "Kreutzer Sonata" - about a man killing his pianist wife after catching her with her violinist partner with whom she played this sonata. I was struck by a suspicion that maybe there was something special in that music that would arouse such murderous desires. Thus I ordered a few recordings of this piece to learn it better. Purely by chance one recording was this DVD with Anne-Sophie Mutter playing this opus. I was quite skeptical towards such a well-known name, and truly expected Yehudi Menuhin with Wilhelm Kepmff to be the best - Yehudi was until this fateful performance my favorite violinist, especially for Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Bach Violin Sonatas. Yehudi's Kreutzer Sonata was on "Yehudi Menuhin: In Memoriam" CD:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000JLFL/ref=cm_rdp_product

I also listened to another Detsche Grammophon recording of the same opus - by Vadim Repin and Martha Argerich:

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Violin-Concerto-Kreutzer-Sonata/dp/B000S0YKQ2/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

They were both very good, but...

To my astonishment, Anne-Sophie Mutter turned out simply ... sensational. Or maybe phenomenal? What could be the right word for absolutely supreme playing, for someone who seems to be one with the violin, capable of expressing from the most delicate to the most violent feelings; the music cries, moans, smiles, laughs, rolls and triumphs in her hands. Her playing is not just very good, as Menuhin's or Repin's - it is bordering on supernatural. Whatever reservations I had about Mutter The Celebrity dissipated in her pianissimi at the end of the first movement Presto. One can hear clearly why she is a habitué on Deutsche Grammophon, why Karajan chose her so frequently - she could simply be called La Divina del Violino. She owns the art of this instrument, and deserves all the fame she possesses.

And to complete my Tolstoy's inquiry, perhaps I underestimated Tolstoy's musical instinct and inner burning erotic passion - indeed this music is so enthralling, so sublimely beautiful that playing it together should be as lovemaking; it has all possible emotions, tempi, turns, ups, downs, and if a couple is playing it well in total harmony with each other, it could certainly extend harmony of playing the music into playing more intimate games. Once more one understands that music playing scenes, especially in Flemish painting, have strong allusions to love and eroticism, as music itself is love sublimated.

Tolstoy chose Kreutzer, not Spring sonata; for its sweetness, hope and happiness are overwhelmed by anguish and apprehension, doubt, melancholy, despair, storm and finally quietness; it surely could be interpreted in a way that Tolstoy did. But it does not have to be - this Sonata is such infinitely great music that its magic inspires each listener to his own story, thus offering myriad of interpretations; this is a mark of a true masterpiece.

Lastly, it would be a great pair of Mutter and Argerich - the sonata is officially for Piano and Violin, so Piano comes first, even if the violin opens the concerto (Beethoven conceded that Sonata No. 9 in A major, op. 47 "Kreutzer" was "scritta in un stilo molto concertante quasi come d'un Concerto"). While Lambert Orkis was expertly, he is the same to Martha Argerich as Vadim Repin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and just to imagine the fusion of two genius - how it could take the work to the next level, although what was done on that evening in Théatre des Champs Elysées is already a paradisiacal delight.

A must-hear-see for all music lovers.

I liked this DVD. Muller's playing of the "Spring" and "Kreutzer" sonatas is wonderful; watching the DVD made it seem that she and Orkis were playing just for me. The 2nd half of the DVD, the commentary on Beethoven and his composing, was also interesting, but the 1st part -- the music itself -- was the real winner. Recommended highly!

Mutter is a very accomplished violinist.
I had a chance to accompny her in a orchestra... what charisma she has... but that was a Penderecki violin concerto.
She plays Beethoven well also, but not quite as well as her Mendelssohn or later works.
I think though this DVD is worth getting. Lamber Orkis is a fantastic accompanist.