John Williams at 90: Anne-Sophie Mutter’s ‘respect for this gigantic musician’

The following is an extract from ‘Anne-Sophie Mutter: The Big Picture’ feature in our April 2020 issue. To read in full, click here  to subscribe and login.  The April 2020 digital magazine  and print edition  are on sale now.

Music has to do with memories because usually you don’t listen alone. There is a story involved – either between lovers or families or friends. It brings people together because we don’t simply play together; we listen together too.’

Anne-Sophie Mutter is speaking to me about Star Wars. At first glance, the connection between one of the world’s leading musicians and the popcorn classic is not an obvious one. But Mutter, it turns out, has been a dedicated fan of the movie franchise, and particularly the scores by John Williams, since falling in love with the first film – now subtitled A New Hope  – when it was screened at her local cinema in Germany’s Black Forest in 1978. So last year’s collaboration with Williams on Across the Stars, an album of his film themes, personally recomposed for solo violin and orchestra, was not, in fact, an idle foray into populist waters, but the culmination of a lifelong relationship with his music, and, like all her projects, the product of a deep and special connection.