For whoever that might be interested...

   THE STRAITS TIMES
   SINGAPORE
   JUN 5 1999

   Beethoven violin gets new tweak

   CLASSICAL MUSIC
   By LIONEL CHOI

   SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
   Shui Lan, conductor
   Victoria Concert Hall
   Thursday

   REACTIONS to renowned German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter's bold account
   of Beethoven's magisterial Violin Concerto In D, Op 61 would depend on
   how far one accepts her liberal, modern reworking of the early
   19th-century warhorse.

   Since emerging from those early Karajan days, Mutter has established
   a no-nonsense image as a thinking, highly-individual virtuoso with an
   unshakeable determination to find her own distinctive voice amid a
   large pool of talented but faceless carbon copies.

   Again, depending on one's interpretative stance, her gallant risk-taking
   and apparent insistence on challenging convention at almost every
   imaginable place in the score on Thursday evening could prove to be
   either wilful and irksome or infinitely gratifying.

   There was never any doubt as to her exceptional technical gifts
   throughout her provocative reading:  How many violinists can actually
   claim to be able to despatch Kreisler's fiendish first-movement cadenza
   with as much nerve?

   Her tonal palette and dynamic range were enormously wide, swinging
   unpredictably from rapt, seductive half-tones to raging fortissimos,
   and from exaggeratedly wide vibrato to naked, disquieting leanness.

   While less competent violinists tend to snatch phrase-endings, Mutter,
   on the other hand, almost always allowed each phrase to linger just a
   little past the bar line.  Portamentos were applied liberally, gear
   shifts incredibly frequent.

   Yet, however paradoxical this may sound, this was clearly intriguing
   music-making of tremendous power, sensitivity and soulful intensity,
   and indeed, only a truly great artist with such flaming conviction
   could thrill and stimulate while vexing common expectations at the
   same time.

   Aided in no small way by fastidiously sympathetic and texturally rich
   orchestral accompaniment, the monumental first movement was one of
   great spaciousness, majesty and dignity.

   Far from sounding like a sweet resting spot, the Larghetto, taken at
   a very slow, other-worldly pace, had an unusually grave, almost deathly
   pallor.

   In particular, Mutter's semi-detached, vibratoless opening entry was
   chilling rather than beautiful.

   The irresistibly exultant sonata-rondo finale skipped along much faster
   than usual.  As a result, the contrasting episodes flowed with more
   natural ease and flair, and the robust energy kept spirits high and
   buoyant and the flow uninterrupted despite Mutter's sporadic lapses
   into distracting indulgence.

   The final cadenza was rushed through with thrilling exuberance, and
   the return of the jolly refrain curiously somnambulistic before rising
   to a glorious crescendo finish.

   Whatever the controversies, this unremittingly personal performance
   was still far more interesting than what Shui Lan had to offer in
   the rest of the evening's programme.

   Webern's Six Pieces, Op 6 were given comparatively dry, academic
   readings, while the schmaltzy treatment of Mahler's textually dubious
   Adagio from his unfinished Tenth Symphony made much of the vast and
   sugar-coated themes though failing to obscure the fragmentary nature
   of the ailing composer's disparate ideas.

Lionel Choi
Singapore
http://www.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/dummies.html