Beethoven sonatas DVD by Mutter/Orkis

March 8, 2005 at 07:36 AM · I do not recommend this DVD. In the documentry, "A Life with Beethoven", Mutter talks mainly about herself, and when she does talk about Beethoven, it is generally in terms of her experiences of playing his music.

The performances of the sonatas are possibly in the worst taste I ever heard in a professional violinist. The opening of the Spring sonata sounds like a drunk guy swaying and stumbling about. Her vibrato is vulgar, very wide and unfocused. The tempo sags and fluctuates in every bar. Rubati are completely misplaced, and her application of vibrato seems to be utterly random. These performances are an extreme of what performance should not be. Mutter seems to think what Beethoven wrote on the page is not good enough for her, and so she 'inteprets' everything. One big Mutter ego fest.

Carl.

March 8, 2005 at 08:40 AM · In one word: Great! Go out and get it, u won't be disappointed! AS for her interpretation, I have to say it's most original yet tastefully done Beethoven there is! Don't we already have enough "text-book readings" interpretations of the sonatas already? And yes, the documentary is about HER and regarding her life and view of playing Beethoven's music. I wonder how many people would say it's egotistic if everything stayed the same in the documentary except we had Itzhak Perlman speaking?

Cheers

March 8, 2005 at 12:45 PM · Allen,

Much as I find it hard to believe anyone could sincerly call Mutter's performance of the Spring Sonata tasteful, there is another issue.

You said: "Don't we already have enough "text-book readings" interpretations of the sonatas already?"

Yes, there are many great recordings which conform to what's written on the page. To make another recording of such a hackneyed piece as the Spring sonata requires guts, for which I give Mutter her due respect. What I cannot respect is that she made a 'different' recording just for the sake of it, perhaps to build her name as a controversial artist, without any regard to whether it is honest and intelligent music making. That, as far as I can see, is egotistical. It's almost as if she were playing Mutter's Spring Sonata, not Beethoven's.

Carl.

March 8, 2005 at 01:37 PM · Allen,

I agree with Carl. Tasteful, this performance is anything but. Mutter spent a sabbatical apparently researching the stuff, was granted rare permissions to see original manuscript and sketches, supposedly to be something new and informed. Well, maybe she slipped in the shower the day before the recording and forgot it all.

Joking aside, with all due respect to ASM, this is not in my opinion her finest music making.

Cheers!

March 8, 2005 at 06:07 PM · You know, even though I am a huge fan of ASM, I have to agree that her sonatas on dvd are a disappointment. And this from someone who thinks her youthful performances of the Beethoven Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto are the absolute best of all time.

As Carl mentioned, her vibrato is randomly applied, but for me the most infuriating part was her refusal to vibrate important notes in each sonata, as if pretending to channel some hidden intention of Beethoven that isn't there. This is a dominant theme throughout the performances and accompanying film.

To her credit, I think her 8th, 9th, and 10th sonatas are generally well executed, but the earlier sonatas are halting, rough, and avant-garde, and lacking any coherent underlying interepetation. The Spring is the worst, as has been mentioned, but the stormy 7th (my personal fave) is also rather disappointing.

And I have soured on Lambert Orkis. He plays like a robot, and despite his clear reverence for Anne-Sophie, doesn't really make an attempt to gel with her.

And although I expected the accompanying film to be candy, I found it rather dull and self-indulgent, profiling her lavish lifestyle and her multitudes of hangers-on, rather than shedding real light on the sonatas. Although I laughed out loud when a pretentious guy goes up to Lambert, still sweating from the recital, and starts criticizing him about a missed F. That was hilarious. And so was the old man who taps pensively on her Strad as if he is somehow being useful. I really loved the clips of her playing the Concero with von Karajan; it reassuringly reminds you that she was a very brilliant prodigy, and should be forgiven her missteps. Does anybody know if the whole concerto is available on dvd?

Oh well... I still like ASM despite all that. I think she just went overboard trying to justify a year spent on Beethoven by offering an unorthodox treatment, lacking in good taste, of his wonderful sonatas.

March 8, 2005 at 08:59 PM · Im with carl, cant stand it... that wide vibrato and those rubatos are not to my liking

March 9, 2005 at 01:15 AM · Are you guys really listening to the same Beethoven sonatas I'm listening to? Distasteful? I think not. This recording certainly is not what we would all call textbook Beethoven, whatever that may be, but it certainly is not distasteful at any rate. There is so much poetry, depth, and color to these performances, that it is really astonishing. To put this differently. Remember the days of the golden age of violinists, when Heifetz, Menuhin, Elman, Kreisler, were all admired, for their deeply personalized interpretations, and interprative insight? What if this same recording of Mutter's beethoven sonatas recording, were recorded in the 1950s, with lots of surface scratch, and basically sounded like old LPs, and on the cover instead of Mutter's "superstar" face, we put an old black and white photo of Ivry Gitlis, would we look at these same recordings the same way? I don't think so. I'm really just making observations here, but, at any rate, these recordings are some of Mutter's best work, and should not be overlooked.

March 9, 2005 at 01:42 AM · I have mixed feelings towards this DVD even though I am a fan of ASM. Although I always find her interpretations refreshing and very egotistical (positive connotation, I feel that her performances, at least for the DVD, should have been a tad more orthodox. I completely understand that when you are playing the same ten sonatas for an entire year and that you will try to interpret them differently everytime, but somehow I did feel that she was deviating in these pieces. On the contrary to everyone else's post on the Spring sonata- I enjoyed it. Is it influenced very much by Mutter's rubato? ofcourse, but think about it- It's "Spring". I never knew anything in life to be completely in Rhythm, we always seem to take some or stretch a little in our lives' so why not our music. Yes, this element is the most fundamental in music, but it has it's leeway. Overall, if you like Mutter you will enjoy this dvd.

March 9, 2005 at 02:02 AM · By the way Mark, here is a link to Mutter's performance of the Beethoven concerto it is part of Karajan legacy tribute.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000K4ZY/qid=1110333666/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl74/002-7074733-9332865?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846

March 9, 2005 at 02:11 AM · Thanks, Rick.

March 9, 2005 at 02:36 AM · Greetings,

Chris, I note somewhat tongue in cheek that the addition of the programmatic title `Spring` was not Beethoven`s (or added much later -somebody be precise please)

So, how would we play it if it was titled winter?

Cheers,

Buri

March 9, 2005 at 08:02 AM · Buri,

That's correct, it was added later (by a publisher perhaps?).

I don't think this is playing in the 'golden age' style at all. It is personalised, but when Heifetz, Menuhin, Milstein etc. personalised a piece they at least followed the score, kept to the tempo indications, and it was clear that what they did had musical justifications. Mutter's random application of vibrato, for instance, would never have been done by any great violinist in the 50s or 60s, and neither would her rubati in the very first bar (how distasteful is that??!!!). I like some of Mutter's recordings (her Sibelius, for example) but this DVD is musical nonsense. It is utterly lacking in any kind of musical thought or coherence. Completely unmusical self-indulgence.

Carl.

March 9, 2005 at 10:40 AM · Thanks to all who have answered this posting. This is a very interesting discussion, which I would not have expected to be so controversial ! I particularly appreciate when all of you explain what you have liked/disliked in the performance and why. As an amateur player, whith not a deep musical education, I often wondered what makes a musical (or more generally art) performance tasteful or not. Is it the fact that it is not played according to the practice developed across years of refining musical interpretation (some glissandos in the play of Jacques Thibaud would not appear tasteful today), in this case it is an educational matter. Or is it related to the feelings, the emotion, the sense of "beautiful" that you have when hearing, in which case it looks more like a natural sense. But then is not free from education however ... It appears that ASM has made some choices which are not academic, or even are anti academic, but do we know the reasons for these choices ? If it is intentional (and it is supposed to be so!) it could open a new way of considering the performance ?

March 9, 2005 at 08:12 PM · Buri,

Yes, you are correct that Beethoven never intended it to be titled "Spring". BUT supposedly there is documentation of him commenting on his Op.23 Sonatas (Spring later became Op.24) and he apparently stated that No.4 was like a "November Autumn"-dark, frigid, and that His No.5 was more like a "stroll through blooming fields"...so therefore I deem the title of "Spring" accurate. Also, I believe this nickname was around during Beethoven's lifetime...maybe he wasn't opposed to it? In any means, interpret it as you wish.

March 10, 2005 at 07:59 AM · Chris,

To each their own interpretation. I still hold that it's one helluva big leap from trying to interpret in a 'spring-like' way to the way Mutter plays it.

Carl.