Anne-Sophie Mutter, Herbert von Karajan - Mendelssohn, Bruch: Violin Concertos (1981)

This digital recording was made in 1980, when Mutter was around 17 years old; she was then recording a fair portion of the violin repertoire with her mentor, Herbert von Karajan. A couple of years after the 1981 LP release it became one of the earlier CD releases, and landed with a thud on the desk of Fanfare's Roger Dettmer. His review in 7:4 referred to "unreal" and "disagreeable" sound. While the balances have the usual tilt toward the soloist, DG has cured the strangely false fadeouts that afflicted many early CDs. But Dettmer, who never but never left readers wondering where he stood, went on to blast "this bloating of music by both composers" in "opulent. .. weighty and deliberate" performances. Actually, he praised Mutter's violin-playing but found much fault with "her erstwhile magus in Berlin."
Whew! Yes, one can hear that Karajan smoothes out the orchestral tutti parts, in the Mendelssohn in particular, to the point where they are just about featureless, but if I read Roger Dettmer correctly in referring to unusually slow tempos I guess I just do not hear them. What I do hear is violin-playing that is always radiant but with some latent excesses in the vibrato that I think have become more patent and detract from some of Mutter's adult performances. And I also think her recent Beethoven sonata recordings reflect a certain artistic point of view that may well reflect lessons learned from the imperious Karajan, magus or not. Subsequent events have demonstrated that Karajan's faith in Mutter was wisely prescient, and as a document of the early playing of one of today's most important soloists this release has value to collectors. -- David K. Nelson