Anne-Sophie Mutter

Speaker 40:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 40:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty six, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

Our Castaway Today was once described as the Shirley Temple of classical music, a tribute to her precocious musical talent. She was six at the time. Today at the ripe old age of twenty three she's acknowledged as one of the great violinists. The conductor Herbert van Karian once called her the greatest youthful musical talent since a young Menuin. She's Anne Sophie Mutter. Anne Sophie, welcome to our Desert Island. What kind of background did you come from? Were your parents musical?

Anne-Sophie Mutter0:57

No, there was nobody in in history of our family musician. My father is journalist and now editor and my mother is just just mother.

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:07

You know, the strange thing is I think there exists no explanation why somebody starts to play. I mean, I was crazy at the age of five playing violin. Maybe it was influence of some recordings I heard

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:19

But uh I just wanted for my fifth birthday to play wildin.

Presenter1:22

Violin. In fact, you were given, I believe, a piano first of all, weren't you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:23

You have given

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:25

Exactly, yes, because my parents thought that I'm much too small to start the violin. Uh at the beginning it's a little bit more difficult because on the piano you already have notes.

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:34

And so I played half year piano, and thank God I could change after that and could show my parents that I really needed to play wildly.

Presenter1:42

Can you remember what you felt the first time you p you picked a violin up?

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:45

You know, I only remember that it was always very easy from beginning on, and I just wanted to play. It was not working for me.

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:52

or practising was just playing with the instrument.

Anne-Sophie Mutter1:55

Of course I made a lot of, you know, not very nice tones and you know, screaming violin and that stuff. And I always had the feeling that I would hurt the violin, and so I had a very close relationship to the instrument immediately.

Presenter2:07

What about your brothers? Because you had what two brothers, did you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter2:10

Exactly, they started the same time with me together. The eldest one is four years older, is Andreas, played also violin, and Christoph studied piano, and we also played a lot of concerts together.

Presenter2:19

Did they have the same kind of talent that you had?

Anne-Sophie Mutter2:21

Yes, I think, but they don't want to develop it, you know, at the age of eight or ten they just decided to do something else, I mean, for life work. If they were not so crazy about music like I am.

Presenter2:29

Thank you.

Presenter2:32

How old were you when you entered your first competition?

Anne-Sophie Mutter2:34

I was six. I just played six months, and uh after that I won the biggest German prize, which special prize they never give before and never after.

Anne-Sophie Mutter2:44

And I went to this competition because my parents didn't believe, you know, that I played not bad. And so my teacher thought maybe it's a good idea to show them. And I went there and I won the prize. And after that a lot of people tried to push me in a a wunderkinkea, you know, Prodigy Child. But my father of course stopped everything and I played only two or three concerts together with my brother until the age of ten.

Anne-Sophie Mutter3:06

And then I entered the same competition my teacher died in this time and I finished the competition with the same price.

Anne-Sophie Mutter3:13

That was a little bit difficult time because I was there eight months without teacher.

Presenter3:17

Let's leave it there for the moment. Let's let's go now to your first choice of music. What might

Anne-Sophie Mutter3:21

Yes, that is of course Yodi Menuin because uh I remember his recording as the first one I heard in Violin, that's Mendelson Concerto with Fort Wangler, Beginning of the First Movement.

Presenter4:31

So let's go back to that moment in time when you were six in one's competition.

Anne-Sophie Mutter4:35

One's cold

Presenter4:36

How did your parents protect you from the pressures and the interests that came in on you at that very early age?

Anne-Sophie Mutter4:42

No, there are two sides in this moment, because uh one thing we should not forget is that you need a good instrument even at the age of five. And teachers also need money, you know. There are so many things around, for example, I had school dispense. That means I I never went to school, that's why my English is so bad. But anyway, I had to go to school twice a year and to make my exam and all that stuff. But of course I didn't lose so much time sitting five or six hours every morning and then playing while in two hours and then the whole day is finished, your whole life is finished. So I had just private lessons two or three hours a day, and I had a very free time.

Anne-Sophie Mutter5:20

Just not playing in public, not playing more than two or three very small and nice more or less family concerts a year. Just to get used to the atmosphere. People are coughing there, you know.

Presenter5:31

So the temptation would have been for them to have made money and therefore you would have been exploited, but that didn't happen. More or less, yes.

Anne-Sophie Mutter5:35

More or less, yes. Or just to show which nice daughter they have.

Presenter5:40

Yes, right. Now you said you mentioned there also the the need for a good instrument.

Anne-Sophie Mutter5:43

Yeah.

Presenter5:44

What kind of violin did you have?

Anne-Sophie Mutter5:45

I had a Mittenwald. That's a very good school in Germany of wiley making, of course a quarter wilein. It was a very good one and I still have it, just for memory.

Presenter5:55

Let's take uh another choice of record. What's your second choice?

Anne-Sophie Mutter5:58

My second choice, that's a little bit a long story. To go on with my life, I played this competition at the age of ten and nothing else. And with thirteen I played the first very important concert in Luzian Festival.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:10

And Karian heard about that.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:12

And uh he invited me to play for him. I went to Berlin and uh of course absolutely sure that he would not accept me, that's clear thing.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:21

I played the Chacon Bach for him after that two movements of Mozart concerto.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:26

And after this he went down and uh he told me, Oh, I'm very happy to marry with you next year that was seventy seven in Salzburg, Mozekocchat. Of course I was completely stoned and shocked and, you know, everything you can imagine. I couldn't believe that.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:39

The next recording I want to choose is um a recording of Rostropovich. That's connected with Karian because on Karjan's seventieth birthday there was a big T V show in Paris.

Anne-Sophie Mutter6:51

And in this T V show there were all his friends, Alexis Weisenberg and Ostobovich and Miri Lafrini. That was the first time I heard Ostorovich live playing.

Presenter6:59

So what have you chosen?

Anne-Sophie Mutter7:00

Wetzo Storowicz, Haydn, cello concerto, C major.

Presenter8:05

How important is the relationship that you've had these many years now with Herbert van Karrion?

Anne-Sophie Mutter8:09

You know, of course he is the musician with the most importance in my life, because after this concert in Salzburg.

Anne-Sophie Mutter8:16

everything was open for me. I really everybody was coming to me and I just had to say no, no, no, no, not more than seven concerts. Of course, my father said that and my teacher, not more than seven or eight concerts, and I slowly developed my repertoire.

Anne-Sophie Mutter8:30

But to have played with Karian is, you know, just like a mark. I mean, everybody knows that you have a certain level. So it's not necessary to lose your time and your strength playing with bad orchestras and, you know, being disappointed and maybe losing love also of music a little bit.

Presenter8:45

Course w when when you read about him, the thing that that comes across is a lot of people are frightened of him. He's a very authoritarian figure.

Anne-Sophie Mutter8:52

He knows what he wants then, for sure.

Anne-Sophie Mutter8:55

And he knows how to get it out of the people. That's the great thing. But I don't think he's auto it, because

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:01

The moment, for example, he is making recording or rehearsal with orchestra.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:05

And he tries to explain something, and it's not working second or third time. He immediately stops and is going to another passage, because then you just getting so tense that it makes no sense. He's a very good sushiologue also.

Presenter9:14

Hmm.

Presenter9:16

Very good.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:17

Psycholog, psycholog.

Presenter9:19

So, yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:21

Psychoanalytica psychologist, yes.

Speaker 49:22

Mike

Speaker 49:26

Here

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:27

It gives you a lot of strength, and of course, if you reach a certain point together with him, you have.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:32

or liberty, you can imagine, because then he's following you everywhere. There's nobody who is really following you like he does, and preparing your entrance.

Presenter9:41

It's almost a for you a great teaching experience then, a great learning experience when you play with him.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:44

Great learning experience.

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:46

Yes, it's always a shock for me to play with him because

Anne-Sophie Mutter9:50

Even works he conducts a million times in his life, like Tchaikovsky, Patitik I heard a hundred times together with him, also in rehearsals, he always, you know, sees it from a different point of view. And that's what I very much admire about him. He's always crazy about perfection, about reaching something else. He's never stopped.

Presenter10:09

What about the reverse side then? You've talked about your perfect conductor, the the man you adore working with. Have you ever worked with a conductor that you've disliked, that you've fought because of an artistic interpretation?

Anne-Sophie Mutter10:20

You know, the problem is the moment a musician tries to push himself in the light and completely forgets the composition, there is trouble coming. And I had once a not very nice situation with the conductor. We tried in free rehearsal to come together. I tried to come together with him and together with Sibelios weighing a concerto.

Anne-Sophie Mutter10:38

But uh he really wanted, you know, to break everything, and so I couldn't take responsibility for the public, for the orchestra and for Sibelios, and I cancelled the concert. But thank God it's the first and I hope, I'm sure, the last experience.

Presenter10:52

What's your next choice of record?

Anne-Sophie Mutter10:54

My next choice is again Rostropovich, and uh it's Romeo and Juliet of Brokovyev because.

Anne-Sophie Mutter11:01

I have a special affinity now to Prokofiev. Rostorovich lived together with Prokofiev a long time and I studied with him together the Weiling Concerto of Prokofiev, a lot of Russian literature, not only Walling Cocerto, also opera.

Anne-Sophie Mutter11:15

And he gave me completely

Anne-Sophie Mutter11:17

different and new information because I think he's the only one in the West who can tell you really what Russian musicians want, composers. And that's the funeral of the Ballet Suite Romeo and Juliet.

Presenter12:23

And Sophie, I know we were talking about the choice of records you were having of this programme, that you particularly wanted something by Laurence Olivier.

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:26

Uh

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:31

Uh of course I wrote Shakespeare some years before and I still try to, you know, come deep in it.

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:38

But I always had the feeling that music

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:42

Is closer to my heart than Poisy.

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:45

But it's not true. After I heard Laurence Olivier speaking Shakespeare, I should have completely

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:51

Different and much closer.

Presenter12:54

Understanding.

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:54

So yeah, understanding to it, yes.

Presenter12:56

What is it particularly about Olivier that you admire?

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:58

The phrasing

Anne-Sophie Mutter12:59

You know it's like in in music the phrasing of his speaking.

Anne-Sophie Mutter13:03

That's what really opens a new world for me. And if I read it's completely different. I'm sure if uh Sir Lawrence Auger is reading a recipe for soup, you you know, it's like music.

Presenter13:14

So what have you chosen and which particular part of the map?

Anne-Sophie Mutter13:15

Um that's to be or not to be in this case.

Presenter13:18

With music, of course, by

Anne-Sophie Mutter13:20

Uh will you want me, yes.

Speaker 313:44

To be

Speaker 313:46

Or not to be.

Speaker 313:50

That is the question.

Speaker 313:57

Whether'tis nobler in the mind

Speaker 314:01

to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Speaker 314:07

or to take arms against a sea of trouble.

Speaker 314:12

and by opposing

Speaker 314:16

Uh And

Presenter14:17

Uh

Speaker 314:17

Yeah. Damn.

Presenter14:17

Yeah.

Presenter14:19

And so we are there you're sort of going all swoony when you heard last Livy's voice there. Has that affecting you, does it?

Anne-Sophie Mutter14:26

Yes, it's really music. I mean, his his voice is phrasing, and everything is so clear.

Presenter14:32

Well that of course was the the perfect present for you on on a special day because today is in fact your birthday, isn't it?

Anne-Sophie Mutter14:36

Exactly.

Presenter14:37

Today you've reached the ripole age of twenty-three.

Anne-Sophie Mutter14:40

Yeah.

Presenter14:40

Many congratulations.

Anne-Sophie Mutter14:41

Thank you very much.

Presenter14:42

I suppose, in fact, there's a sense in which I mean you're you're renowned now as one of the world's great uh violinists that uh a lot of people look at you and think you've reached the peak of your career. Is that how you look at it?

Anne-Sophie Mutter14:52

No, not at all. What's the peak of the Kahir? Of course, if you play with Kharian and other great conductors and very good orchestras.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:00

you have big possibilities to develop yourself, but the peak of your development is never reached because every concert you play and there is of course a limited number of compositions you can play. So you always play five or six times a year, Beethoven or Bramza, Tchaikovsky.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:15

Every concert is only, you know, a step.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:19

to reach your ideal.

Speaker 415:21

Hmm.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:21

And the moment you reach something you are it's on this.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:24

Much bigger, immediately develops.

Presenter15:27

I I'm interested in in in how you add something new to your repertoire then. I mean, supposing now you you've decided to bring a new piece of music into your repertoire. How have you set about preparing that?

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:34

In Europe.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:37

That takes about one year from the first look at the score. First I sit on the piano with the orchestra score and I play a little bit for myself to have an idea what's happening around, and after that I make fingering without the violin.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:49

Then I practice to get it more or less clean and I put it aside.

Anne-Sophie Mutter15:55

Just continue playing my concerts all year. But the moment, you know, I I play something or prepare at work I already know for eight or ten years, I always find something new. And that

Anne-Sophie Mutter16:07

also develops the work I'm not doing in the moment. I mean, it's always in my head moving. And it pretty often happens that I wake up or I just sit somewhere and I'm memorizing and I have a good idea about fingering, about the work I'm not playing for two or three months. I think the most important

Anne-Sophie Mutter16:24

Side on preparing something is thinking about it. Just always have a mental contact.

Presenter16:27

Hmm.

Presenter16:31

And how do you mentally prepare for a concert? Now you've learnt your piece, you're about now to play it to the audience, you're about to go out there and do it.

Anne-Sophie Mutter16:35

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter16:36

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter16:37

Yes. You know, most important thing is that you have a strong imagination. Because what you want to do and what you do after all and what the public feels, you know, that's a three different steps. So you feeling and your pressure and your force you make is a hundred times stronger than what the the public effectively, you know, gets from you.

Speaker 416:59

From you? Hm.

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:00

The most important thing is your imagination. It's it's like hypnotic. You must come on stage and from the first moment on really

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:07

Eat the public. Just like a lion, yes.

Presenter17:08

Just like a line.

Presenter17:09

How soon do you know, when you've got on stage, that you've got that audience where you want it?

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:14

Immediately.

Presenter17:14

Really?

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:15

Yes, immediately.

Presenter17:16

Another thing that interests me is that somebody like you would the the performance is at the the very highest

Presenter17:22

Intellectual and spiritual level, if you like, what why are you on stage doing that? I mean, is it in any sense because of that a kind of mystical experience to you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:30

No, I don't think so. No. Uh you know you have perfect control about everything you make, even about your bad moments.

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:38

No, because at the beginning of the movement you already know how it has to end. You already have of course a certain idea, but you always have to build it you.

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:46

The most

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:47

Power-taking thing on the concert is your mental work. Because if you lose one phrase, you know, the whole movement is gone already. Well, then I take it.

Presenter17:54

Well then, let's take it. You've prepared, you've gone on stage, you've won the audience, you've finished, you've come off.

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:58

Yes.

Anne-Sophie Mutter17:59

You come off.

Presenter18:00

What happens then? I mean do you replay the entire concept studio?

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:07

And of course I suffer very much about moments I was not in very good shape.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:12

But that's life, I mean, and next evening I try to make it better and better and better and better. And I'm really my greatest congruence myself.

Presenter18:20

Let's have another choice of music on something.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:21

Yes, the other uh choice is Jean Sibelius, and I think that's a good contradiction to Shakespeare, because uh Jean Sibelius once said that his music is not at all based on uh on words.

Presenter18:34

On literature.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:34

Exactly, not at all. And I have chosen Sybil's Winning Concerto with Fine De Vu.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:39

Because for me she is one, still one of the greatest violinists and she died very, very early, at a very young age, in a airplane.

Presenter18:47

Is this the Violin Concerto that you had the argument with? Exactly, yes. Ah, then we'll be able to hear what the argument was about.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:49

Exactly, yes. Then we'll be able to hear what the argument was about.

Presenter18:53

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter18:53

Yeah, first movement.

Presenter19:52

And Sylvia, you you only play about seventy or eighty concerts a year, which by normal standards is n far from excessive. I mean, other than that.

Anne-Sophie Mutter19:55

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter19:59

Yes, thank God. Yeah, what'd you say?

Presenter20:01

Friday, thank God.

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:01

What is

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:03

I think it's unnecessary just to push yourself around and uh play too many concerts and not thinking that you really need time to get back strength. I want to play every concert with everything I have, not just like that.

Presenter20:11

How'd one

Presenter20:14

So how do you get back strength? How do you relax? How do you you pace your year, so to speak?

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:19

In January I have four weeks holidays and in July and usually I practise in January just to make new repertoire. For example, now string tures or play um Beethoven string turrets, which is completely new area in my life.

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:33

And that's the company with Rostorbovich and Jurana, which was my dream, you know, from the beginning of my life on.

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:40

And that takes a lot of time to study, also to study together. And in July I just relax in France and I sleep like I don't know, like a dead person, you know, and swimming and reading, that's all. And I'm not traveling, not sitting in a hotel, just not moving.

Presenter20:55

And you don't play the violin at all?

Anne-Sophie Mutter20:56

Oh no, following nothing.

Presenter20:58

Well, what about when you do travel? I mean, you travel all over the world. You travel to Japan, to America. I'm interested in the kind of reception you get. Does it differ from country to country? I mean, what's it like in Japan, for instance? How are you treated there?

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:10

You know, in Japan they are especially hysterical about classical music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:14

And they have a very large fan club there. It's it's really sweet, you know, they bring your big flowers with the Muta Society and their stuff. And it's a little bit like Popstar after the concert they want to touch your legs. I don't know, not my legs, but uh

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:27

Dress.

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:29

And you sit in the car and you just make like queen, you know, hi hi.

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:33

Um in Russia I think we have

Presenter21:33

Yeah

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:36

I don't know.

Presenter21:36

I know.

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:38

But in Russia there you have without any doubt the deepest listeners. And they are really you have a reception which you could cry as artists after that because they listen. Do they really take it directly to the art? It's not like amusement, you know, like in other countries you just go to concert to show your dress or just go to concert instead of eating, you know.

Anne-Sophie Mutter21:59

There it really is a is like blood, really part of life there in Russia, music. And so I of course I'm in love with Russia.

Presenter22:08

Let's have another choice of music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter22:10

The next one, that's um Eroica with Herbert von Carion. You know, it was very difficult to choose only eight recordings and to choose only one of Maestro von Garion, but uh I especially love his new recordings of all Beethoven symphonies and I've chosen the Eroica first movement.

Presenter23:20

I'll cast away this week is the violinist Ansofi muttered.

Presenter23:23

You mentioned, Anne-Sophie, this reception that you had in Japan, where you said you're like a pop star. In a sense, of course you are. I mean, you're at the top of your profession. A lot of people admire you inordinately.

Speaker 423:27

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:29

Okay.

Presenter23:34

Do you get proposals of marriage?

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:36

Yes, yes.

Presenter23:38

Are they serious proposals?

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:39

I don't know, I never controlled fingers.

Presenter23:42

Do reply to them.

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:44

It's very difficult to reply to such serious things.

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:47

More or less, you know, I find a way to make a nice answer.

Presenter23:51

Another thing interests me too, someone who's as involved as you are with a career, with a very difficult and testing career, would it

Anne-Sophie Mutter23:57

No, it's not Kaye, it's just music full of it. You can't stop it, even in in a whole bunch of things.

Presenter24:02

What even makes the question more pertinent then? What would the person that you share your life with have similarly to be

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:03

And then what

Presenter24:07

Somebody immersed in music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:07

Seventy

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:08

Not like me, of course. Uh I don't know.

Presenter24:11

I was thinking about Elton John because I know that I know that you

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:13

Because I know that I know that you

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:16

I admire him very much. His musician, that's no question. And I was in several of his concerts, of course.

Presenter24:17

Yeah.

Presenter24:22

Yes.

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:23

Paris, yes, I enjoyed very much.

Presenter24:26

What is your taste in popular music? I mean, uh about Nelton John?

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:28

Not in John. Above from him that's the early Rolling Stones and the Beatles. There also is a very good Russian one, I forgot his name, very young one.

Presenter24:39

And and and and Soviet, what kind of music don't you like? I mean, is there any kind of particular music that that you really cannot stand?

Anne-Sophie Mutter24:46

Yes, schlaga, I don't know in English, this, you know, really absolute stupid kind of um entertainment music, you know, just gaga ga, I love you, gaga ga, I love you not, you know, something like that. That's horrible. But it always depends on which mood I am. So I n not always listen to Elton John or to Bach, it just depends how I feel.

Presenter25:05

Let's have another choice of music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter25:07

Yes, the next recording that's um dedicated to Sir Peter Pierce. I'm very, very sad that he disappeared so quickly out of my life.

Anne-Sophie Mutter25:19

I met him last year in Olparo and

Anne-Sophie Mutter25:21

And uh this multi-multi-school?

Presenter25:25

Maltings

Anne-Sophie Mutter25:26

Malding School, exactly Malding School, invited me to play a gala concert for him in november thirteenth. And I should like to have his next recording the War Requiem by Benjamin Britton, the Agnus Day, sung by Peter Pierce.

Speaker 425:40

Here God fast rose many a priest.

Speaker 425:47

Bend in the faces

Speaker 425:50

There is the wine that they were flesh m.

Speaker 425:57

By the

Speaker 426:01

I hold the tram.

Speaker 426:25

The script on all the papershung.

Anne-Sophie Mutter26:31

Yeah.

Speaker 426:32

And allegiance to the state.

Presenter26:42

And Sophie, what about the future? What plans do you have for the immediate future? Let's talk about that first.

Anne-Sophie Mutter26:47

Yes, for immediate future I will make a recording with my Stofan Karen of Tchaikovsky Wine Concerto and of course play concerts in Salzburg and Lutzern. But I think what's also very interesting is that I will develop my chamber music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:00

That means I will develop my program in Beethoven string trio.

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:04

And I also am going to record the Glazenov in Prokofev conducted by Rostropovich. And uh I want to develop

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:12

My very modern side, that means Dodoslavski and Mori and Dutiu.

Presenter27:17

And what about the the long term? I mean, did you ever think sort of twenty years ahead, says that?

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:22

No not that long, but uh four or five years we are planning ahead, yes, because I only want to play eighty concerts. So I have to

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:31

Put in other years what I can't do this year.

Presenter27:34

What about heroes? What about people? You've talked about Bankari. I know one obviously has been an influence. I'm a hero.

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:39

And a hero.

Presenter27:40

What other heroes do you have? Say not particularly in the world of classical music. Who are the other people you look at and and admire in the world around you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:40

What does that heal? Uh

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:43

Yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter27:48

Of course I'm specially connected to music. That's why another one is Rostopovich, also a musician. There is Yodi Menouin, which is one of two or three wallinists which really, you know, made an explosion for wall in development. And not to speak about his human qualities.

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:03

And for sure there is certain itin.

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:06

And I had big problems to decide which kind of book I wanted to take to the island. So I turned since Ahibel Gulag.

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:12

Rovinson Krusa, because Robinskuser is very practical, you know, if you read every day what to do. But uh I deeply admire Sochenitsin for his courage, you know, to risk his position, his life, and write about this

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:25

horrible island, this situation in in Soviet Union with this um system.

Presenter28:31

Final choice of music What shall it be?

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:33

A final choice that of course will be something of Bach, that will be Dino Lipati, who died at the age of thirty three in a horrible illness, that was L'Orchemie. And he set standards which, you know, still are unreachable.

Anne-Sophie Mutter28:49

And he was very deeply religious. And for me, Bach, together with Dino Lipati, that's whole life.

Presenter29:52

And Sophie, now you're on the Desert Island. You've finally arrived there. Would would you enjoy it, do you think, on the Desert Island? Do you like solitude? Do you like being by yourself?

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:01

Yes, but you know I don't know how it looks, tell me. Uh the lot of uh

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:06

Green things on the island.

Presenter30:07

Would you try to escape, do you think?

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:10

I think yes.

Presenter30:11

Are you practical in the sense that you could look after yourself? I mean, could you.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:15

You know, the problem is I think I couldn't kill the animal. And so the big problem, the lion would eat me.

Presenter30:21

Fish, you could kill a fish, could you?

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:21

Fish you could kill a fish.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:24

That depends how hungry I am. I never tried, you know. I never was that hungry.

Presenter30:28

Now, you've got to imagine that you've got your eight records there, and one day there's some awful natural disaster. Seven was swept away to sea, and you're left in the middle of the sea.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:32

Sun is swept away to sea and you're left with the money.

Presenter30:36

Yeah, and I can choose.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:36

And I can choose which one?

Presenter30:39

The versing issue.

Presenter30:41

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:44

Maybe I would stay with Romeo and Juliet because there is whole life in it. It's birth, love and death. And uh it's nice on the island to think about Romeo and Juliet.

Presenter30:53

Now I know that your favourite author is Soljunitsin. I assume that you take one of his books then to your desert island.

Anne-Sophie Mutter30:58

To be honest, I think it's a little bit uh too cruel to take the Archipelago Gulag with me, so I for practical reasons I will take the Robinson cruiser.

Presenter31:06

Because you might find the source medicine too depressing, you think.

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:08

Yes, and uh in Roberto Cruz you just, you know, read what you have to do to to escape to make your li life nice.

Presenter31:13

The money. Make your l life nice. Of course. And easy. Right. And finally then the one luxury object that you're allowed.

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:20

Needs my study by, for sure.

Presenter31:22

Yes we

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:22

Yes, with a bow.

Presenter31:23

What kind of a stradoveris is it, by the way?

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:25

That's a seventeen ten called Lord Dunraven, and it's coming from England from London.

Presenter31:31

And would you play every day?

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:33

I don't know, I don't think so. It depends on the sunshine or raining, you know.

Presenter31:38

And Sophie muttered, Thank you very much indeed.

Anne-Sophie Mutter31:40

Thank you.

Speaker 431:47

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive.

Speaker 431:51

For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.