Anne Sophie Mutter it blew up the box office again in the final stretch of the summer festivals. The German violinist appeared this weekend on the stage of the Kursaal in San Sebastián in a resplendent pink-Barbie dress, but she did not do so as a recitalist or first lectern of a large orchestra, as she usually does, but as promoter and godmother of a group of young musiciansthe Mutter’s Virtuosi, formed by herself through her foundation and to whom, since 2011, she offers the opportunity to accompany her through important concert halls.
among the chosen included the Spanish violist Sera Ferrándezsister of cellist Pablo Ferrández (who was in charge of inaugurating the Fortnight poster with the concert no. 1 of Shostakovich at the head of the Rotterdam Philharmonic) and a member of this group for six years intrepid and versatile string ensemble. So much so that the chosen program, the same one that they performed the following day at the Santander Festival Palace, dared to connect the essences of Bach and Vivaldi’s baroque with the contemporary music of André Previn and John Williams.
The experiment went halfway right. And not because the dialogue of the violin trio of the Concerto in F major of Vivaldi was unsuccessful in his waste of energy and vitality. Nothing to object to Mutter’s precise (without score) and highly virtuosic reading of the solo parts of the first concerto that Bach composed for violin. The problem did not concern the musicians so much as to the toll imposed on his instruments by the gut strings of the specialized ensembles that, for decades, have claimed the purity and authenticity of the interpretation with historicist criteria.
The famous Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 of Bach, already at the beginning of the second part, sounded majestic, robust and extremely bright under the watchful eye of teacher Mutter, unbeatable at his recent 60th birthday, who finished off the move with a portentous and lucid ornamentation of the cadenza. Next, they rescued a forgotten score, the Violin Concerto No. 2 of the black composer Joseph Bolognea contemporary of Mozart and the son of a slave, in which the Virtuosi applied the perfect dose of elegance, typical of the classical style, and passionate passion.
André Previn, New York pianist, conductor and composer, Mutter’s ex-husband to be exact, composed five years after dying He doesn’t know, a piece for two string quartets and double bass. After premiering it in 2014, the Mutter’s Virtuosi have incorporated it into their repertoire as proof of his commitment to the music of the present and also as a brief sample of their expressive capacities: the musicians are divided into two factions facing each other in a festive Promenade which Mutter then masterfully resolves in a Declamatory what remember the last Shostakovich.