Brahms: Double Concerto & C. Schumann: Piano Trio

An aristocrat of the string world is united with one of its most exciting newcomers for this major new concerto release on Sony Classical.  

Anne-Sophie Mutter joins her protégé and Sony Classical artist, cellist Pablo Ferrández, for this new recording of Brahms’s bijoux Double Concerto and the unjustly neglected Piano Trio by Clara Schumann.  

Ferrández, who released his debut album on Sony Classical in 2021 to critical acclaim, was also a member of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s handpicked ensemble Mutter’s Virtuosi. He has since won an Opus Klassik Award and embarked upon a major solo career, all while continuing his association with his mentor. 

As one of the greats of the classical music world since her childhood collaborations with Hebert von Karajan (with whom she recorded her first Brahms Double Concerto in 1983), violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter needs no introduction. Alongside her superlative musicianship and standing, she has always sought to help and support new generations of string players - and to advance her own ability to communicate through the violin.  

In January 2022, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pablo Ferrández recorded Brahms’s Double Concerto live in Prague with the great Czech Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck, following thrilling collaborations on the same work in Madrid and Oxford.  

The concerto is a chamber work with symphonic impact: a piece built on confrontation at whose heart lies the most beautiful expression of love from musicians entwined in an embrace. From the partnership with Pablo Ferrández, Anne-Sophie Mutter experienced a ‘fresh, open-minded and new’ artistic partnership from a musician she believes is ‘at the forefront’ of the new generation of cellists.  

Artistically inseparable from Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann was a female composer in a man’s world and has often been overlooked. “Both adored each other artistically and Johannes Brahms often asked her advice” Anne-Sophie Mutter stated. Their human and artistic relationship tied them together and inspired them.  For Anne-Sophie Mutter diversity also played an important role in the repertoire selection to also highlight a female composer neglected by music history. Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio of 1846 is one of her finest works - a piece full of turbulence, complexity and deep longing that brought Anne-Sophie Mutter and her regular piano partner Lambert Orkis, in particular, to unprecedented depths of musical conversation.  

The performance captured here in the studio in Munich is like none other on record in its focus on Clara Schumann’s individuality of spirit and musicianship.  

‘I am inspired to have such a musical conversation with Pablo,’ says Anne-Sophie Mutter of her work with Pablo Ferrández.  

‘Miss Mutter is the ideal artist,’ says Pablo Ferrández. ‘There is always an idea behind her playing, everything happens for a reason. It is an honour not only to play and record with her but just to know her and have her as a mentor.’ 

The full album is out now!