Bach, Bologne, Previn, Vivaldi, Williams in Bloomington, MN

Hand it to violinist
Anne-Sophie Mutter
. At an age when many performers are content to rest on their laurels, she has stepped out into new territory, forming
Mutter's Virtuosi
, an ensemble of young players connected to her Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Moreover, she has tentatively incorporated influences from the historical performance movement, although she does not play an early violin in the mostly Baroque and Classical-era program here. Sample the fierce attacks in the
Vivaldi
Concerto for three violins and orchestra, RV 551
, or, for that matter, the
Four Seasons
movement that is included as one of the encores. Leading
from the violin, she draws a nice contrast between
and
Bach
; the latter, even as influenced as he was by the Italian manner, never adopted the full-scale sense of operatic drama.
Mutter
also leads the group in the intriguing
Nonet
by
André Previn
, her ex-husband, which, while not a Baroque work, has a neoclassical sense of symmetry with its two string groups pivoting on a single double bass. Among the three encores are also two pieces by
John Williams
, arranged for
by the composer. The program proper ends with the
Violin Concerto No. 2 in A major, Op. 5
, of
Joseph Boulogne (or Bologne), Chevalier de Saint-Georges
, the hot Caribbean-French composer of
Mozart
's day;
delivers probably the best available performance of this rather grand work. One might take issue with this or that here, but the plain fact is that the album, taken from a live 2022 performance at the Vienna Musikverein, is a great deal of fun and shows this great violinist in fine form as she passes on her secrets to young followers. This album made classical best-seller charts in the late autumn of 2023. ~ James Manheim