To capture the brilliant partnership between violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis, one only has to look to their riveting recording of Beethoven s Violin Sonatas. Over the course of those four CDs, the pair revealed themselves to be a lively, sympathetic team. The same description could be used for this single-CD recital, featuring four very different 20th-century compositions from four very different composers. The spiky nature and high notes of Prokofiev s Sonata stand in direct contrast with George Crumb s Four Nocturnes, a fragmented but short sonic journey filled with subtle harmonics and stark, hallucinogenic movements. Moving to Webern s Four Pieces, Mutter and Orkis literally define the essence of collaboration

The very first notes of this extraordinary performance show how thoughtfully Anne-Sophie Mutter has approached the work. Sibelius s marking for the solo violin is dolce ed espressivo, which for most violinists would mean with vibrato. But Mutter plays senza vibrato and achieves a hauntingly expressive effect over the muted pianissimo oscillations of the orchestral violins. Happily, she sustains this high level of engagement with the score through the entire account, playing the taxing solo part with riveting intensity, making every note count, producing a gloriously rich and varied tone, and giving the listener a memorable musical experience in the process. The effect of all this on Andrй Previn and the Staatskapelle Dresden, to paraphrase Mark Twain, appears to have been prompt and electric. They give a spectacular reading of the score, one notable for both its sonorous depth and its sense of atmosphere.

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