THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 23, 2004

Mutter, Masur and the NY Philharmonic honor French composer
by Martin Steinberg

The Lincoln Center audience wasn't sure it was over when violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the timpanist played the last chords.

The applause started tentatively Thursday night and grew louder when conductor Kurt Masur kissed her hand. Then the composer, Henri Dutilleux, came on the Avery Fisher Hall stage. The New York Philharmonic broke into "Happy Birthday," and the applause crescendoed to forte.

The French composer's present for his 88th birthday was the first U.S. performance of his violin-orchestra nocturne "Sur le meme accord." Dutilleux (pronounced duh TEE yuh) dedicated it to Mutter, who performed the world premiere in April 2002 with Masur conducting the London Philharmonic.

This mysterious 10-minute piece is built around a single chord.

"Mirror writing and different orchestral colors transform this chord, but it is omnipresent, an obsession," the composer wrote for the London program.

From the first four pizzicato notes by Mutter, the music twists tensely and unwinds while making dreamy allusions to the composer's Impressionist ancestor Claude Debussy. Its abrupt ending is foreshadowed by Beauty and the Beast-like pairings of violin with bass clarinet and with string bass.

Also on the program was Beethoven's Triple Concerto -- with Mutter joined by her husband, pianist André Previn, and cellist Lynn Harrell -- and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3.

The trio, making its North American debut, was in sync through the quirky three-movement concerto. Harrell was particularly strong in milking the cello solos generously provided by Beethoven. The cellist and Mutter also easily handled the many virtuosic passages.

In the final work, Masur, the Philharmonic's emeritus music director, took the orchestra through a rapid tour of Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony, with little or no breaks between the four movements.

Still, the audience had no doubts about this one, which starts with a solemn viola chorale and moves through sea breezes and storms before its majestic conclusion that conjures sunshine burning off the mist from the Scottish Highlands.

Masur has a direct connection to this music, and it showed. He was the longtime conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, an orchestra led by Mendelssohn from 1835 to 1847.

The program was being repeated Friday and Saturday nights.