Music
Classic star Anne-Sophie Mutter turns 60
Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter turns 60. Photo
© Jens Büttner/dpa
The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is absolutely world class. But even a star violinist does not always get everything, as the Munich native reveals on the occasion of her 60th birthday.
If her parents had had their way, Anne-Sophie would have been Mother possibly never became a violinist. The sounds of a neighborhood kid practicing the violin had frightened the family so much that they were against it. But the girl prevailed – luckily for the music world. From a young age, mother inspired with her musical skills and rose to become a star violinist. The Munich resident is now celebrating her 60th birthday on Thursday (June 29).
Little Anne-Sophie from Rheinfelden/Baden in Baden-Württemberg was absorbed in music. At the age of six she won the first prize with a special distinction on the violin and the first prize with her brother Christoph four-handed on the piano at “Jugend musiziert”. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Culture saw a talent of the century and exempted her from compulsory schooling. Instead, she got private lessons.
Soon the conductor Herbert von Karajan took notice and brought the youngster to the Salzburg Festival when she was just 14 years old. A lot of fame and glory, not cheap for the parents who had to pay a lot for their daughter’s passion. “In our case, it’s at least a few thousand marks a year,” said the father in a television interview that can be seen in an excerpt from the documentary “Vivace,” which is currently available in the ARD media library.
Financial sacrifices for the family that paid off: Mother is a star who has worked with just about every famous name in the music world, such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim and Mariss Jansons. Composers such as Krysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihms or her later husband André Previn wrote pieces especially for her.
There are many good fortunes in mother’s life, but also hard work, diligence and steadfastness. “I am generally grateful for everything wonderful and also for the difficult tasks that life has given me like so many others and that I have always tried to master,” summarizes the musician in an interview with the German Press Agency. A heavy blow was the death of her first husband Detlef Wunderlich, father of her two children, who died of cancer in 1995. “For me there is no such thing as giving up,” says mother, describing her motto, which she was encouraged by this bad experience. “When you’re a single mother raising two children, it takes a positive force.”
Power that she always finds in music. “I was incredibly lucky that I not only wanted to take up this profession, but still live it with great passion.” But even she knows the feeling of despairing of some pieces. “I’ve been wrestling with Schönberg’s violin concerto for decades,” she says of Arnold Schönberg’s composition, which some consider extremely difficult, if not impossible to perform. But give up? Not mother. “I’ll try it again from time to time, simply because I find it a good retreat. And most of the time you discover a docking point that you can then use to take the hurdle.” That’s exciting. “And of course it has a certain potential for addiction to learn something new.”
Music isn’t everything in the life of the nature-loving native of Munich, who loves the mountains and raves about “Star Wars”. “In her nature, she has rousing and contagious energy and joie de vivre, her interests go far beyond music, ranging from cinema to literature and painting. She has retained a childlike amazement and ability to marvel,” the composer recently praised Jörg Widmann at the award ceremony of the Ruhr Piano Festival 2023. “And she always uses her position in musical life in the best sense of the word to stand up for the needy, the weak, the not so privileged.”
Mother promotes young musicians, energetically demands that the Bavarian state government build a new concert hall in Munich and is President of the German Cancer Aid, also due to her first husband’s illness. Anyone who meets her experiences a happy, approachable and curious woman who tells exciting stories, often laughs and likes to party, “preferably every day”, as she says. She wants to travel around her birthday, “with my brother, a few friends and of course my children,” she reveals. “Familytime is always wonderful, so a birthday is a very good excuse.”