Anne-Sophie Mutter

Anne-Sophie Mutter (born 29 June 1963) is a German violinist.

Born and raised in Rheinfelden, Baden-Württemberg, Mutter started playing the violin at age five and continued studies in Germany and Switzerland.

Since Mutter gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, she has recorded over 50 albums, mostly with the Deutsche Grammophon label, and performed as a soloist with leading orchestras worldwide and as a recitalist.

Her primary instrument is the Lord Dunn–Raven Stradivarius violin.

Mutter's repertoire includes traditional classical violin works from the Baroque period to the 20th century, but she also is known for performing, recording, and commissioning new works by present-day composers.

As an advocate of contemporary music, she has had several works composed especially for her, by Thomas Adès, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, and John Williams.

At the age of six, Mutter won the National Music Prize, and in 1972, she gave her first concert with the Winterthurer Stadtorchester.

Inspired by a recording of violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Furtwängler, she began studying with Erna Honigberger, a pupil of Carl Flesch.

After Honigberger's death in 1974, she continued her studies with, also a former student of Flesch, at the Winterthur Conservatory.

Mutter's playing began to receive attention and she stopped attending school to devote herself full-time to music.

Conductor Herbert von Karajan arranged for her to play with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Only 13 years old at the time, she made her public debut on stage in 1976 at the Lucerne Festival, where she played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D major.

She was supported early in her career by Herbert von Karajan and made her orchestral debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1977.

In 1977, she performed at the Salzburg Festival and with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

Critics praised the level of maturity in Mutter's performance, with one reviewer of Die Welt writing, ""She played it ravishingly, and above all, she did not play it at all like a child prodigy.

Her technique is fully mature." At 15, Mutter made her first recording of the Mozart Third and Fifth violin concerti with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Mutter started to perform outside Europe in the early 1980s.

In 1980, Mutter made her American debut with the New York Philharmonic playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto under Zubin Mehta.

That same year she also made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven's Romance in G major and Mozart's Third Violin Concerto under Georg Solti, and her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart's Third Violin Concerto under Mstislav Rostropovich.

After three years of her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1980, in which she played Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto under Claudio Abbado, Mutter was named the honorary President of Oxford University's Mozart Society.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Mutter expanded her repertoire and devoted herself more to contemporary works, a focus that would become a significant component of her career.

Mutter's Japanese debut was in Tokyo (1981) with the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan, followed by her Russian debut in Moscow (1985).

The following year Mutter made her debut at Carnegie Hall playing Mozart's Fifth Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, and made her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Bruch's Violin Concerto under Seiji Ozawa in 1983.

In 1985, at the age of 22, she was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music (London) and head of its faculty of international violin studies and in 1986 an honorary member.

In 1986, Mutter premiered Witold Lutosławski's Chain 2, Dialogue for Violin and Orchestra, with the Zurich Collegium Musicum.

Norbert Moret composed his Violin Concert En rêve for Mutter in 1988.

In 1988, she also made a grand tour of Canada and the United States, performing as a soloist with orchestras and giving solo recitals with pianist Lambert Orkis.

Mutter made her recital debuts in New York (at Carnegie Hall), Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto, and other cities and debuted with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Mutter premiered music by Krzysztof Penderecki and André Previn and performed classic works such as Beethoven's Violin Concerto and violin sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms, Franck, and Tartini.

By the 1990s, Mutter had established herself as an international star, transitioning from Wunderkind to mature artist The press described her as a "master of the violin" and "musician of near peerless virtuosity and unimpeachable integrity," with critics noting her glamorous image.

One author of Der Spiegel wrote in regards to Mutter's rise to fame: "In the meantime, the entire classical music world knows these tones and this musical master: Anne-Sophie Mutter, now 25, is probably the only world star made in Germany in today's instrumentalist trade and the first violinist from [Germany] who can keep up with the world's violin standard. After Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's flight of fancy, no other serious musician from Germany – gender notwithstanding – has succeeded in rising more quickly from the first floor to the penthouse of the international guild of interpreters. In her line of work she is at the top: Frau Fiddler on the roof."

In the 1990s, Mutter premiered Wolfgang Rihm's Gesungene Zeit (1992), Sebastian Currier's Aftersong (1994) and Krzysztof Penderecki's Violin Concert No. 2 Metamorphosen (1995).

Mutter has received numerous awards and prizes, including four Grammy Awards (1994, 1999, 2000, and 2005), Echo Klassik awards (2009, 2014), the Grand Decoration of Honour of Austria (2007), the Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2009), France's Legion of Honour (2009), Spain's Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts (2016), Romania's Grand Cross National Order of Merit (2017), Poland's Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2018), Japan's Praemium Imperiale (2019), the Polar Music Prize (2019), and holds honorary memberships at the Royal Academy of Music (1986) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2013).

Mutter founded the Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation e.V. in 1997 and the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation in 2008, which support young string musicians.

She frequently gives benefits concerts and, since 2021, has been the president of the German Cancer Aid.

Mutter was born in the German town of Rheinfelden, Baden-Württemberg.

Her parents were Karl Wilhelm Mutter and Gerlinde Mutter and she was raised with two older brothers.

While Mutter's father was a journalist, who edited a newspaper in Baden-Württemberg, her mother was the first woman in her family to graduate from college.

Although no one in her family played a musical instrument, Mutter's family was passionate about classical music.

Mutter began playing the piano at the age of five, and shortly afterwards took up the violin after listening to an album of the Mendelssohn and Beethoven violin concertos that her parents had given to each other as an engagement present.