Anne-Sophie Mutter's performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in Dublin tonight promises to be historic, writes Eileen Battersby
It is one of the most beautiful compositions in the repertoire. At a time of deep national trauma, when there were no words to contain the horror, German state radio broadcast it as the Reichstag burned and Berlin became a wasteland. Not only does his majestic Violin Concerto celebrate the versatility and tonal grace of the instrument, it also captures the essential haunting and dignified sweetness at the heart of the music of Beethoven, the most troubled and inspired of composers - and the one most worthy to stand at the right hand of Bach.
Tonight, German virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform the work at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Kurt Masur. Every violinist aspires to this piece, every great one has played it, most of them (from Heifetz in 1945 to Vengerov in 2005) have recorded it, and there have been tremendous live performances, not least from Nigel Kennedy under Klaus Tennstedt in Kiel in 1992, which was also recorded and remains, for Kennedy, a career highlight. Recordings by Yehudi Menuhin in 1952, and Itzhak Perlman's richly romantic interpretation in 1980 feature in the EMI Great Recordings of the 20th Century series, while Gidon Kremer's performance in 1993 defies superlatives.
Yet it is the cerebral Mutter, above all her peers, who brings (along with her artistic and technical genius) to this subtle, lyric concerto a singular wealth of understanding of Beethoven the man and the musician. If ever a musician was born to play a specific work, it is Mutter to perform this concerto. For all her range and intense engagement with the works of Brahms, Mozart and Berg, as well as her support for new works, the mature Mutter (who toured the world performing the Beethoven sonatas) is the consummate Beethoven player.
Tonight's performance promises to be more than memorable; it should also be historic, a rare opportunity to experience perfection tempered by humanity. Not surprisingly, the concert has been sold out since last September.
DURING THE 2004 season, Mutter performed the concerto with the London Philharmonic on three occasions. At this stage in a career which now spans almost 30 years, it would probably be difficult for her to remember exactly how many times she has played it.
She has never forgotten her first attempt. In an interview with Joachim Kaiser, accompanying her superb live May 2002 recording of the concerto with the New York Philharmonic, she recalled the day in 1978 when her mentor, Herbert von Karajan, suggested she should study the Beethoven next. She spent six months preparing.
"Then, as we agreed, I travelled to Lucerne to play it for Karajan," she said. "But a little into the piece he said to me: 'Go home and come back next year.' "
The following year she returned and began working with Karajan on the concerto. It proved an exciting start to what has become a fascinating progression, her playing of it having changed over the years as she evolved as a musician. For Mutter, "personal maturity and humility are vitally important in the face of Beethoven's tragic character". She has an affinity for Beethoven and compares his complex trains of thought in the piece to the language of Thomas Mann. It is Beethoven at his most architectural and, as Kennedy has said, "his more optimistic and idealistic".
For all its musical and technical demands - the first movement lasts more than 20 minutes - the concerto is not a virtuoso piece, but more of a collaboration with the orchestra. It is the most difficult of the great concerti and is also the first Romantic violin concerto (as well as the finest of the "big five" of the 19th century, composed by Beethoven, Mendelssohn , Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Bruch).
Beethoven's concerto dates from his middle period. He was a piano virtuoso, the violin was not his instrument, but he certainly possessed an interest in, and knowledge of, stringed instruments. Already stricken by deafness, he had pondered the piece for a long time, for possibly more than a decade, but the actual writing was very quick.
FIRST PERFORMED IN Vienna on December 23rd 1806, the concerto was not exactly a hit on the night. The soloist was Franz Clement, a popular violinist, not a virtuoso, who had not even rehearsed it.
The piece was divided into two by the interval and Clement further broke the flow of the work at the premiere by inserting after the first movement a little sonata of his own, which he played on one string holding his violin upside down.
Ironically, the critics overlooked the concerto's lyricism and revolutionary depth and seemed more taken by Clement's little "entertainment".
The work languished until the young Joseph Joachim approached the piece and played it under the baton of Mendelssohn. It began a revival, attracting the devotion of Fritz Kreisler, whose cadenza remains the most popular of about 30 written for the concerto (Mutter favours the Kreisler).
In this, the 200th anniversary year of that slapdash premiere in Vienna, Beethoven's beguiling concerto is supreme, a prize for every violinist, a challenge for virtuoso intent on mastering the layers of nuance. Its influence is there to be heard in the concerto which Brahms finally composed for Joachim. Conducted by Brahms himself, this premiered on New Year's Day in 1879, 73 years after Beethoven's.
In the context of Beethoven's work, the concerto has a special place and owes some of its beauty to his wonderful feel for orchestration, through which he revolutionised the symphonic form.
Above all, his Violin Concerto represents a defining moment in the magnificent tradition that is German music.