Concert of Anne-Sophie Mutter with Kurt Masur and Dresdner Philharmonie

Category: Photo coverage

For years Anne-Sophie Mutter has been called the world’s queen of the violin. The sold-out Smetana Hall confirmed why that is so.

Virtuosity, beautiful tone, and a stunning rendition of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor surely moved everyone there. It was also admirable that she did not try to achieve any showy effects, and was instead absolutely concentrated on the music from beginning to end. An encore, from Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin in D minor, maintained the utterly extraordinary atmosphere in the packed Smetana Hall, during which everyone seemed to be holding their breath for several minutes.

The eighty-two-year old conductor, Kurt Masur, has been associated with Prague for many years. He sees the relationship as a bond. As he has repeatedly said, the Prague Spring opened up the music world to him in the years of the Iron Curtain, and he has not forgotten that fact even after years of being famous.

His conception of Dvořák’s From the New World Symphony came to maturity in the years when he was the chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic. ‘In America, like Dvořák, I felt far from home, and was also being continuously faced with new challenges’, said the conductor at the press conference. That is also why today Mr Masur plays From the New World much more dramatically, though at a slower, ‘dignified’ tempo. His performance was also definitely full of warmth. As an encore he led the Dresden Philharmonic in the slow Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor. It was a concert that won’t be forgotten.