Under the auspices of UCSB Arts & Lectures, brilliant and soulful violin superstar Anne-Sophie Mutter, with her collaborator of 31 years, pianist Lambert Orkis, will play a recital at 7 p.m. Friday in The Granada Theatre.
Mutter, who has won four Grammy Awards, and Orkis will perform Wolfgang Mozart’s Violin & Piano Sonata No. 21 in E-Minor, K. 304 (1778), Claude Debussy’s Violin & Piano Sonata in G-Minor (1917), Maurice Ravel’s Violin & Piano Sonata No. 2 in G-Major (1923-1927), Mozart’s Violin & Piano Sonata No. 32 in B♭-Major, K. 454 (1784) and François Poulenc’s Violin & Piano Sonata, FP 119, “in memory of Federico Garcia Lorca” (1942-49).
This is a program of breathtaking elegance and sophistication (a word I use as a compliment). Three of the four composers represented stay in character throughout. Only Poulenc breaks the mold.
The sonata is written in memory of Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Lorca, whom Poulenc never met, but whose sensibilities were clearly in harmony with his own. They share a member ship in a persecuted minority, and also an innate revulsion for fascist bullies. The sonata, thus, is rather graver than the usual Poulenc fare, rather more angular and stern.
The composer did not care for the sound of the solo violin, and he called the completed work a “monster.” Although he attributes any accidental felicities in the score to violinist Ginette Neveu, who helped him with the violin parts and to whom the work is officially dedicated, the sonata is a masterpiece, though a usually overlooked one.
Tickets to the concert are $35 to $65 for the general public, $15 for UCSB students (a Granada facility fee will be added to each ticket price), and they can be purchased by phone at 805.893.3535 or 805.899.2222, or online by clicking here.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.