Reviewed by: Bob Briggs
Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall
Anne-Sophie Mutter’s account of Brahms’s Violin Concerto was a performance by a virtuoso. She was determined to drain the last ounce of everything from Brahms’s music and attacked it with a ferocity which was quite non-Brahmsian but she would temper it with the most exquisite and tender pianissimo imaginable. Thus the first movement veered between intense high drama and loving repose. The slow movement, which was graced by the oboe of David Theodore, was slightly hurried and therefore lost some of its sublime restfulness. The finale proved to be the most successful for here there was a real feel of gypsy-fiddling. Overall, a good performance, but it was Mutter’s Brahms and not Brahms’s Brahms. Ludovic Morlot and the London Philharmonic gave fine support.
