About ten years ago, I bought two live sets of violin sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven; one by the renown artist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and one by Dutch violinist Emmy Verhey, known in the Netherlands, but not so much outside the Low Countries. Mutter had a perfect intonation, soothing sounds and her fingers dazzled around the strings. Verhey obviously had more trouble with the material, struggling more with the demands than Mutter. But… where Mutter used the music to show off everything she had, ripping the music apart along the way, Verhey used the score to make *music*, something coherent and, in the end, a series of performance I want to come back to, opposed to the Anne-Sophie Mutter versions.
Recently, news came through that, at the age of 65, Emmy Verhey retires from stage, concentrating on education. I wish her the very best on this career and hope you will enjoy the Denon set of the Beethoven sonatas just as much as I did. As the first sonata is not an ideal place to start, I’ve put it at the bottom of the list. But it’s there… :-)
