Lambert Orkis - Musical Life - with Anne-Sophie Mutter

"When I perform with Anne-Sophie Mutter, the sounds coming over my shoulder are the stuff of my musical dreams. This recital partnership is a pinnacle of my professional life and a continual source of artistic fulfillment."

Lambert Orkis

Widely extolled as one of the premiere partnerships of today, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis have developed a unique point of view regarding the music they play. Since 1988, they have performed in the major musical centers of the world such as New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Vienna's Musikverein, Berlin's Philharmonie, London's Barbican Center, Tokyo's Suntory Hall, and Buenos Aires' Teatro Colon, to name a few. Their enthralled capacity audiences demand repeat engagements.

In 1998, they devoted their year to performing Beethoven's cycle of Sonatas for Piano and Violin, giving over 85 performances, recording the cycle live in Wiesbaden, Germany, and filming for television the cycle live in Paris. Their recording of this cycle for Deutsche Grammophon won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, as well as having been nominated for Best Classical Album. This release has also garnered a National Public Radio Performance Today Critic's Choice Award. A recently released DVD Video contains the Parisian performances of the "Spring" and "Kreutzer" sonatas, and a documentary film entitled "A Life with Beethoven".

Works by 20th century composers Prokofiev, Crumb, Webern, and Respighi are included in the imaginative program of "Recital 2000", their newest audio release on Deutsche Grammophon.

Their audiences have included President Mitterrand of France, President von Weizsächer of Germany, Queen Sofia of Spain, and the King and Queen of Sweden. Charity concerts are regularly given with the proceeds being donated to such organizations as Classical Action for AIDS, Save the Children, Cystic Fibrosis, Red Cross for Romanian Orphans, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Pasteur Institute, Beethoven Birth House, Temple University Boyer College of Music, Muscular Dystrophy, German Children's Disability Center, Music School in Poland, and Diakonie.

"The Berlin Recital", recorded by Deutsche Grammophon was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Chamber Music Performance.

"Mutter and Orkis provide one of the most astounding performances I have ever heard, of any music, live or on recording." [Webern 4 Pieces, Recital 2000, Deutsche Grammophon]

Fanfare

"What strikes the ear is a vibrant and brilliant partnership, with the superbly gifted Mr. Orkis challenging Ms. Mutter at every turn of virtuosity, humor or expressiveness. The conventional terms in which one partner is thought to dominate, the other to accompany, at a given moment--even Beethoven's ultimate decision to give primacy to the piano in his titles--all seem banal here, as Ms. Mutter and Mr. Orkis weave a seamless texture that carries the argument forward unwaveringly."

The New York Times

"Orkis, a frequent partner of Rostropovich, has also had a fascinating development. I first thought of him as a brilliant interpreter of new American music, possessed of crystalline articulation but not necessarily of the right temperament for the 19th century repertory. Even his later, impeccable performances of Schubert with the Smithsonian's Castle Trio did not prepare me for what this surprising pianist has brought to Brahms while performing with Mutter."

San Francisco Chronicle

Photo by Tom Specht

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